Thread: Colours then.....!!!

Hunting with two Grandsons recently in the Kaimanawas this is what I observed...one fella in standard kahiki dress and shorts pretty tricky to keep visuals on...the other in similar colours BUT with a what I would call a standard mid-range blue hat on, he was on point throughout the stalk, he & I were on, and even out to 150 metres in scrubby shit he was still VERY VISIBLE....
On some days when the sun is getting up I have often paused looking through the bush and seen a lot of Orange foliage a colour a lot hunters seem to prefer.
Just as there no straight lines in the bush apart from the sky there is no BLUE....

Interested in any comments, any stirring or scathing criticisms...

Can't go wrong with blue IMO, Personally I have a blue long sleeve thermalish thing I wear, feels very "safe"

Green all the way, if you cant see me you cant shoot me.

Originally Posted by oneshot

Green all the way, if you cant see me you cant shoot me.

Spot on, unfortunately it's something for these idiots that don't correctly identify their targets to aim at.

Well @BruceY to answer your question statistically speaking 31.86% of forum members prefer to wear orange blaze as opposed to the other 23.01% that prefer the blue blaze but after 2 years of debate the clear winner ( no coalition here) are those that wear no blaze coming in at 45.13% its got me thinking though if the majority are wearing no blaze , what are they wearing im thinking Flannel shirts .

Im divided over blaze blue for during the day and a clean fluro yellow over vest for the dimmer parts of the day.

the colour orange was brought up as a subject at work the other day, could its over use in the world as a "safety colour" road cones, signs etc be causing or enhancing the effects of so called "mindblindness" let alone its similarity to colours and shades in nature .

It would be interesting to re-read the police presentation I attended back in the early 2000's on this subject

This conversation really interest me, I keep a mindset that no one wants to shoot another hunter, so if others can make a mistake then could I?
I have made a hat out of the pink camo that H&N sells (they sell it as blankets), blue is also very visible especially when trying to follow my hunting buddie through dense bush, but like others my preference is to be unseen.

Originally Posted by BruceY

Hunting with two Grandsons recently in the Kaimanawas this is what I observed...one fella in standard kahiki dress and shorts pretty tricky to keep visuals on...the other in similar colours BUT with a what I would call a standard mid-range blue hat on, he was on point throughout the stalk, he & I were on, and even out to 150 metres in scrubby shit he was still VERY VISIBLE....
On some days when the sun is getting up I have often paused looking through the bush and seen a lot of Orange foliage a colour a lot hunters seem to prefer.
Just as there no straight lines in the bush apart from the sky there is no BLUE....

Interested in any comments, any stirring or scathing criticisms...

I have come to the same conclusion. I have worn a south african '83 pattern webbing in the bush a few times now, and really like it to carry gear in.
But seeing it's a chocolate brown, I figure that sooner or later it will cause a problem, so I'm looking for a blue or grey paint to fix it.

If anyone here has painted webbing, I'd be interested to see how it turned out, and what you used.

Originally Posted by Gillie

I can’t say I understand the I’ll wear camouflage so no one will see me idea.

Camouflage clothing does not make you invisible. If you are moving the human eye will still see you. If you make noise the human ear will still hear you. If you move a bush it will still be seen. Camouflage clothing would only be an advantage if you stopped moving i.e. you thought something / someone else was there. Planning for this to be the case out in the bush means you are putting your faith more in your ability to silently hunt and detect another hunter in the bush before they detect you. Chances are if they hear you moving or see you brush by a bush they will stop moving until they know what you are… chances are if they don’t know what you are they will try and ID you through their scope…

Rather than simply rely on my stalking ability I try to stack the odds in my favour by wearing blaze clothing. Not just a hat but a full blaze orange shirt with a black camo pattern. Yes, people have been shot wearing blaze. I remember reading somewhere that in the excitement of the moment the brain can “see what it wants to see” or “see what it expects to see”. I wonder if it is more or less likely to do this with blaze or camouflage clothing or simply at darker shade of skin… or the hair on someone’s head…

I posted this in an old thread discussing what colour to where while hunting... some food for thought.

Something to consider with the blue blaze is the spectrum that deer see in makes blue pop out in the same way it does for us. Arguably of cause, seeing as we can't just ask what they see. even kuiu's vias has blue based colours that in the deer's spectrum pop out of the camo pattern

Something else to consider is the prevalence of colour blindness in the male population (most hunters). My understanding is that up to 90% of males suffer from colour blindness to a greater or lesser degree.

From colourblindness.org:

Colour blindness (colour vision deficiency, or CVD) affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women in the world.

The effects of colour vision deficiency can be mild, moderate or severe so, for example, approximately 40% of colour blind pupils currently leaving secondary school are unaware that they are colour blind , whilst 60% of sufferers experience many problems in everyday life.

Statistically speaking most people with a moderate form of red/green colour blindness will only be able to identify accurately 5 or so coloured pencils from a standard box of 24 pencil crayons. Depending upon which type of the condition a colour blind person is suffering from they could see the set of pencil crayons similarly to the following images.

I was speaking to our optomotrist about colour blindness last week as he was testing my boys for keratoconus. My best mate is severely colour blind and we picked that up as kids aged 7 or 8 playing in the fields in England when trying to catapult bunnies. The optomotrist last week said that in NZ about 1 in 10 blokes are affected in some way. So no offense @rupert but that doesn't sound like 90% to me.

It is important to understand that these people are shooting through bushes, at something they haven't seen. It really doesn't matter what you wear when you are talking about people who will not identify their targets. One guy was shot through his blaze orange hat.

what would make a difference is harsher sentences. if people know they are going to jail for ten years for shooting a person mistakenly, then they will stop treating hunting so casually. Harsher sentences were brought in the USA years ago and it reduced these kind of mistaken identity shootings when hunting virtually overnight.

But lets put this all into perspective. You have more chance of being eaten by a shark than of being shot out hunting in NZ.

Yes I agree Carlsen. I don’t like to troll and rant and rave about stuff I don’t know much about... but the sentence on the recent Kaimai accident was a massive eye opener for me. Like, is this for real? I honestly had no idea that not going to jail was even an option for something like that, no matter how contrite you are. It doesn’t seem to stack up against all the other things that happen in life, when things go badly wrong.

The guy who fed dope cake to his colleagues got two years FFS!!!

I missed the Kaimanawa deaths in 2002 / 03 whenever it was, when there were three in a row, as I was overseas, but when I read about those a few months ago, and the police report that came after, I thought 9 months was bloody light.

the harlequin type tees from hunting and fishing have a little of this and a little of that..sort of a buck each way...love mine and mates tell me it sticks out like doggies danglies. Ive got blaze blue and have shot deer wearing it.