Best Duck Blind Grass

How much grass you actually need

The most common concealment mistake is not the wrong grass, it is not enough of it. A layout blind in a cut field needs its whole top surface broken up, not a decorative fringe, and a boat blind needs several times what a layout blind does because it presents several times the surface. Buy by weight and coverage, not by the look of the photograph.

The published figures are the only real guide, and only three makers print one. Avery publishes two pounds of material per KillerWeed layout kit, which it says conceals one full-size blind or two mid-size blinds, and five pounds per boat blind kit, with a suggestion to use two kits for heavy coverage. Beavertail publishes ten bundles covering roughly twenty square feet. MOmarsh sells 1.25-pound and 5-pound bundles without a coverage claim, and Rig'Em Right publishes half a pound per pack of ghillie string, which tells you immediately that it is a top-up product rather than a kit.

Plan on more than one kit for anything bigger than a layout blind. A-frames, boat blinds and pit tops all eat grass, and a half-covered blind is worse than an ungrassed one because the eye goes straight to the pattern break. If in doubt, buy two and have some left for repairs mid-season.

Natural fiber or synthetic

Natural palm and raffia look right and need looking after. Avery's KillerWeed kits publish rot-resistant natural palm fibers, Avery's RealGrass mats are slow-dried woven palm leaf, and Beavertail's bundles are raffia with nylon. All three take dye or spray paint, which is the real advantage: you can follow a field from green in October to bleached tan in January. The cost is maintenance, because natural fiber packed away wet after a season of use does eventually break down, whatever the rot-resistance claim.

Synthetic grass survives neglect. MOmarsh's InvisiGrass and Rig'Em Right's polypropylene ghillie string are both synthetic, non-absorbent and unbothered by being stored wet in a boat all season, which is how most grass actually gets treated. What they will not do is take dye, so you buy the color you need up front — MOmarsh publishes Natural, Olive and Timber, and Rig'Em Right publishes tan, green and brown.

Mats are a different tool. Avery's RealGrass mats are woven panels you cut to fit a pit top, a boat deck or a blind roof. They are the right answer for a hard surface that needs covering and the wrong one for a layout blind, where strands tied into stubble straps break up the outline far better than a sheet does.

Whatever you buy, add local cover on top. Every maker here says a version of the same thing, and it is true: manufactured grass breaks up shape and color, but the cover that grows in the field you are hunting is what makes a blind disappear. The technique is in how to hide a layout blind, and it matters more than which of these six you choose.

How we scored these

Grass is scored on the published-spec rubric this site uses for field accessories: function and features (30%), build and materials (25%), weather resistance (20%), size and portability (10%) and warranty (15%), published on how we score. Weather resistance is scored on the material itself, and identically for identical materials: synthetic scores above natural palm and raffia, because it does not care how it is stored. Function is scored on published weight or coverage and on how the grass attaches. Nobody in this category publishes a warranty term, so warranty scores 4 across the board and separates nothing. Three of these six are already in our registry from the Phase 1 build and carry the same scores here that they carry everywhere else on the site.

Who should skip all of these

Hunters in flooded timber, where you are hiding behind trees rather than under grass. Anyone hunting a permanent blind that is already brushed in with local cover, which is better than anything sold in a bag. Hunters whose blind is the wrong shape or the wrong height for the field — grass does not fix a silhouette problem, and types of duck blinds covers choosing the right hide. And anyone about to grass a blind they have not yet bought: the blind comes first, and best layout blinds is where that starts.

Match the material to how you store it and the quantity to what you are hiding. If your blind lives in a boat and goes away wet, buy synthetic: MOmarsh's InvisiGrass in the shade that matches your field. If you want to dye or paint the grass as the season changes, buy natural palm fiber: Avery's KillerWeed layout kit for one blind, the boat kit for a boat, and plan on two kits for heavy coverage. Beavertail's clip-on bundles are the ones to buy if you grass and de-grass often, and Rig'Em Right's ghillie string is for topping up straps that have thinned out. Every buy button goes to a tagged Amazon search for the product rather than one fixed listing, because these sell in several colors and bundle sizes at different prices. Then brush in with local cover on top — how to hide a layout blind is the part that does the most work.