Outdoors: Bad blind can fowl up hunt

When at home and expecting to sit for a long period, one usually chooses the most comfortable seat not occupied. It's not often that way in a waterfowl blind - and not necessarily because the "seat" is outside in cold, windy, wet and sometimes snowy weather.

Yet, those on the chase for waterfowl not infrequently will sit longer on an uncomfortable hard wooden bench or upside down plastic bucket for hours, sometimes from before sunrise to sunset, without much complaint. That's the nature of the sport.

Once decades ago while on a hunt for black ducks and brant on a frigid late on the marsh at Chincoteague, Va., my gunning...