Best Elevated Hunting Blinds

1. Our Top Pick: Landmark Permanent Hunting Blind

The Landmark permanent hunting blind is a strong third place contender on our list of raised hunting blinds.

It’s not as rugged as either of the Terrain offerings, being made out of top grade marine tarpaulin rather than solid plastic walls.

That said, the tarpaulin walls give the Landmark blind the kind of weatherproof, windproof quality of yacht-sails, so it’s not as though the blind is about to collapse on you as you take your shot, or whisk you away to the land of Oz in a stiff breeze. Once you’ve put it together, it’s designed to stay together under all normal circumstances.

In fact, the Landmark blind is very much a ‘leave it out until you absolutely have to break it down’ blind – the tarpaulin is designed to see it through sun, rain and snow around the clock, around the calendar.

Some users have suggested that’s just as well though, because it’s a heavy structure that takes hours to set up, especially when elevated. Landmark also makes a ten feet tower on which to elevate the blind, and which is sold separately.

The tower is actually getting more rave reviews than the blind itself, so if you’re going to elevate a blind, it’s worth checking out the Landmark tower, whether or not you decide to go for the Landmark blind.

There are definite advantages to choosing the Landmark elevated deer blind though. It has a spacious 6’ x 6’ floorplan, and with a domed roof it gives around 7 feet of headroom, a feature which has made the blind particularly popular with bow hunters, most of whom should be able to use the blind to shoot standing up.

The windows on the Landmark blind are designed to give hunters a range of options, and can be opened horizontally or vertically, allowing you to choose your position and angle with greater freedom than most blinds.

If you’re looking for the space and headroom of some of the upmarket ground blinds, but in an elevated blind, the Landmark blind, with its associated 10 feet tower, could be the way to go for your hunting future.

2. Terrain The Edge 5 Sided Hunting Blind

Why settle for a standard 4 sided unit, when the fifth side of the Terrain 5 sided hunting blind means it can give you true 360-degree shooting when it’s elevated.

The windows are tinted plexiglass, to help your blind – and more importantly, you inside it – stay hidden for as long as your hunt lasts.

Big enough for two hunters and gear, the Terrain 5 sided blind is tough enough to keep you safe from the weather, and made of durable, UV-protected polyethylene, so whatever happens outside, you should be comfortable inside while watching your prey and planning your hunt. The walls are also overlapped to make sure the blind is weatherproof.

As you might expect of a blind that stands at 75 x 85 x 72 inches and weighs a solid 132 pounds, the Terrain 5 sider is not a blind you’re going to want to carry as part of your normal hunting kit, as you would with ground blinds.

This a more permanent portable cabin, and as with many such blinds, it comes without the ladder or tower that elevate it, so that’s an extra expense to factor in.

That gives anyone the choice of whether to use it as a sturdy, permanent ground blind or to elevate it to a level you find works for you.

Coming in kit form, you can assemble it at home and transport it to your hunting ground on the back of a pick-up, or if you want to get in touch with your Inner Backwoodsman while still taking advantage of the weatherproof capabilities of modern materials, you can setup and assemble it yourself on site.

If you’re going to buy an elevated hunting blind, ultimately you might as well go the extra mile, add the extra side for the increased visibility, and get the Terrain 5 sided hunting blind.  Still way better than being in the trees.

3. Terrain The Edge 4 Sided Hunting Blind

The reason the Terrain 5 sider tops our list is that it has all the advantages of the Terrain 4 sided hunting blind, but enough space for two hunters and their gear.

If you’re mostly a solo hunter though, you can save yourself almost half the money and go for the Terrain 4 sided blind, which is big enough for one hunter and their gear, and not only get most of the benefits of your buddies in the 5 sider, but have a heck of a lot of money left over for gear, beer, coffee and a smile.

The Terrain 4 sider has all the biggest advantages of the 5 sider, including the tinted plexiglass windows for added concealment and the strong polyethylene walls for weatherproofing in most environments.

It also has windows in all four sides, allowing you to shoot game approaching from any direction.

All that comes in a significantly smaller, lighter package here though – the 4 sided hunting blind has dimensions of 48 x 78 x 48 inches and weighs in 40 pounds lighter than the two-person version at just 91 pounds.  Sizes on these deer blinds really does matter, and this one still gives you plenty of room to use while staying off the ground.

If you’re into the lone hunter lifestyle of course, the 4 sider adds the extra luxury of peace and quiet, allowing you to be safe from the elements, with a great advantage on ground hunters, being able to see animals approach from much further away and from all directions, and still giving you the sense of being part of the natural world, pitting your wits against the prey.

Users say this is an easy blind to put together, though some also recommended putting it up at home and then transporting it to your hunting ground, just so you don’t get all the way out there and discover you need the drill you left confidently in the garage.

As elevated hunting blinds go, the 4 sided Terrain option gives you lots of what you need in a one-person option.

4. Shadow Hunter Outdoorsman Series OD46BGK Insulated Gun & Bow Combo Hunting Blind Kit

Shadow Hunter’s Outdoorsman insulated gun & bow Combo hunting blind kit tells you more or less everything you need to know in its name.

It’s an insulated blind that works well for both gun hunters and bow hunting. It also has a handful of innovative features that make it worth considering, and a price tag that perhaps makes it worth taking a deep breath.

The insulation of the blind means you’re paying for more than a waterproof box that can be mounted on a platform here. Both in terms of its construction and its engineering, the Outdoorsman combo blind is designed to make you not just invisible, but silent and unsniffable too.

Unlike some other blinds both on our list and on the market, the Outdoorsman combo blind is explicit in dealing with not only sight and sound containment, but odor containment too. That means in the unlikely event that your prey takes a sniff of the wind in your direction, they won’t pick up the scent markings of human beings from you as you sit in your blind seat.

That scent protection feature is down to the Outdoorsman’s unique approach to windows – it uses the Shadow Hunter silent window system (also sold separately for your blind of choice) to both add to the insulation of inside from outside and to provide niche openings for hunters to weapons with the minimum visible footprint.  The windows act like the most rugged curtains you could purchase, while cancelling out nearly all noise and sound waves.

The windows are silent-opening too, to maintain the illusion that you’re not really there at all.  Sound reduction is crucial to keep your prey from spooking.

While the outside of the Outdoorsman blind is made of rust-proof aluminium, on the inside there’s a wooden construction, insulated with a 1 inch foam lining. That helps with both temperature control and sound muffling, more like a true custom building than typical box blinds or DIY enclosed hunting stands made from DIY instructions, menards pallets, and cheap metal.

Shadow Hunter wants to sell you a lot of blind, but it’s also determined to give you your money’s worth in terms of the practical design it packs into that blind.

While the blind itself is 4’ x 6’, like others in the market, it makes the most of itself by adding a peaked roof, giving the blind a peak height of 77 inches, or 6 feet 5, which should be tall enough for many bow hunters to shoot while standing.

5. Snap Lock Formex 4×6 Portable Deer Hunting Blind with Shelf and Window Included

The Formex 4 x 6 promises a lower weight blind that’s ideal for elevation. At just 88 pounds, it’s certainly much lighter than our list-leader, but is that enough to recommend it?

Well, no, but it has a few nifty tricks that help it onto our list.

Like the Outdoorsman, it’s an insulated blind, though the Formex achieves its insulation by a simple double wall system, rather than using all the wood and foam that make the Outdoorsman such a heavyweight and potentially troublesome transport prospect.

Its lightness also makes the Formex a dual-use blind, being able to work as a ground blind or an elevated blind without much difficulty.

It’s fairly easy to set up too, using mounting strips and tabs to snap it in place on a stand, rather than anything complex or tool-heavy.

That said, the Formex is priced within $150 of the heavyweight Outdoorsman, and it’s challenging at first to see where your money’s going.

The Formex is a balancing act between functionality and ease. Where the Outdoorsman goes hard on technological design aimed at hunter comfort, but carries both a hefty price tag and a hefty blind when assembled, the Formex delivers more simplicity and straightforward hunting blind functionality, while being 300% lighter in its construction.

In terms of performance, there’s little to differentiate them – the Outdoorsman has its silent windows and its odor insulation, but the Formex has straightforward windows in every wall and the door, and as a more lightweight prospect, might well be less noticeable by prey than a 400 pound shed on a platform.

Ultimately, the price tag on the Formex feels excessive, but if you’re paying for lightweight convenience, it makes more sense than the Outdoorsman. Each are good options depending on what’s more important to you on your particular hunting journey.