We have discussed the resurgance of hunting from the ground. While many of us still enjoy hunting from the treetops, as time has past many of us have gone back to basics and taken to spending more time with our feet on the ground.

Over the years there have been many ways to hunt from the ground, including stalking, drives and handmade blinds.

As the popularity of ground blinds ascends to new levels, it’s only logical to assume that the wisest trophy bucks and dagger-spurred toms – their senses honed to perfection from evading lurking predators and crafty hunters their entire lives – may be suspect of anything in their environment that they didn’t see the day before. Regardless of how flawlessly a blind is designed, taking camouflage to the ultimate level is the best way to ensure that nothing is left to chance.

Concealing ground blinds with natural vegetation is hardly a new concept, and just about all of all the companies that produce blinds offer some excellent camo combinations.

One company has been at the forefront of manufactured portable blinds: Ameristep. While there are other great companies offering portable blinds for today’s hunters, Ameristep is one of the leaders.

Ameristep’s ground blinds have varying numbers of sewn-in brush loops to facilitate this process. But wouldn’t it be nice if an entire blind was engineered and built for this purpose? Ameristep’s engineers thought so, too, and created the all-new Ameristep Shifter Blind for 2016.

The highly-customizable Shifter borrows some of the best features and design elements from the most-popular Ameristep ground blinds, then kicks up the custom-camo-concealment-quotient with two rows of sewn-in perimeter brush loops, additional sewn-in loops on the roof and corners, and eight sections of shock-cord that can be connected to hubs or stake loops to help hold heaps of branches, brush, sticks, stalks, grasses and greenery.

While the new Ameristep Shifter offers unprecedented concealment options, this breakthrough blind’s large window array is just as compelling and attractive an important feature that affords maximum versatility when one considers the amount of supplemental camouflage that may be stacked up outside. The Shifter provides full-coverage mesh windows on two sides, complete with built-in gun ports designed for firearms or crossbow hunters. These large windows also feature Ameristep’s Dual Window Curtain System, a split magnetic curtain & toggle window design, allowing the tops or bottoms of each window curtain to be opened or closed quickly and quietly for optimal viewing and concealment. The other two sides have large corner windows with shoot-through mesh, tailor-made for bow hunters.

The Shifter Blind comes in the flat-out cool and effective Kryptek Highlander camouflage pattern, impeccably printed on Ameristep’s iron-tough yet soft and quiet Durashell Plus fabric which is a dull, lightweight woven polyester that won’t reflect light. Inside, hunters disappear against a stealthy, black ShadowGuard coating.

A super-stout frame is required to support the added weight of all that supplemental camouflage, and the new Ameristep Shifter Blind delivers it via Ameristep’s industry-leading Spider Hub System, a two-piece, stamped steel design that won’t crack or break like cast metal hubs used on competing blinds.

The Ameristep Shifter Blinds offer brush it in options loops to add local foliage to your blind, included Shock Cord System allows for customizable concealment, dual window system; split magnetic curtain & toggle window design, rugged Spider Hub frame and easy setup and takedown, backpack carry bag, stakes, and tie-down rope.

The Shifter Blinds offer inside height of 67 inches and larger 59×59-inch floor space.

Savvy hunters see ground blinds for what they are: versatile and effective hunting tools that help them get close to game. Unfortunately, however, occasionally the game sees them, too, which is why we should always be carefully placed and brushed out whenever possible. Nearly all of Ameristep’s hub-style hunting blinds are engineered to help hunters with this task, but only the Ameristep Shifter Blind makes it its primary mission.

Hunting spring longbeards from a pop-up blind will change the way that you chase spring gobblers. When done properly they are a great tool for both the veteran or rookie hunter.