Thread: How much camo is too much?

Iwear camo hunting ,as its all ex military therefore built to be reasonably rugged and unlike some posters here believe each to their own. Oh and further to delight those who may look down their prominent probisci at me i also use ridgeline gear as again I get a good run out of it!Ive never yet had a duck ,possum rabbit or any game taken judge me like humans do!

I wear a camo top because when I got my gun licence the instructor said no one in NZ had been shot by mistake while wearing camo……yet.

Deers eyesight isn’t anywhere near as good as ours is it?

thats an ongoing moot point about deer eyesight-according to some articles Iread it may be their eyesight is more attuned to IR /UV light bands make of it what you will.I suspect the FAL instructors comment was a throwaway,or at least i hope it is. camo is no defence to a overeager trigger finger commanded by an addled brain.

Originally Posted by kotuku

thats an ongoing moot point about deer eyesight-according to some articles Iread it may be their eyesight is more attuned to IR /UV light bands make of it what you will.I suspect the FAL instructors comment was a throwaway,or at least i hope it is. camo is no defence to a overeager trigger finger commanded by an addled brain.

Yeah it was part of a wider conversation about most people who are shot in the bush are from the same hunting party and that hunting accidents in the states are rarer on a per capital basis because there’s serious penalties for shooting a deer of a different sex than you have a tag for . It was food for thought though.

From what I understand a lot of animals eyesight operates in a different way to ours ,like you said with UV and also with iridescence.

Originally Posted by paremata

I wear a camo top because when I got my gun licence the instructor said no one in NZ had been shot by mistake while wearing camo……yet.

Deers eyesight isn’t anywhere near as good as ours is it?

Deer see better in low light than us.

a few studies I have read believe deer have amazing shape outline vision and movement vision which I reckon is true as well from encounters iv had with deer.colour doesn't matter so much.

Everything I wear except for my puffer Jacket I got at an Op Shop, random combination of outdoors gear. Getting your layering system correct is far more important (for your safety) than the pattern or colour of the clothing.

I think if you’re bush hunting, in general it makes little difference.
But big open country I think it does help you blend in.

But I am 100% certain; give a good hunter a worn out 303, dress him in pink tights and a silver sequin top, he’ll consistently get more deer than an average hunter with his full Kuiu camo setup and a 1/4 MOA Euro rifle. (Me)

Worth a read with regard to what deer see.
https://www.deer.psu.edu/the-eyes-ha...n%20from%20red.

Originally Posted by Yesmate

a few studies I have read believe deer have amazing shape outline vision and movement vision which I reckon is true as well from encounters iv had with deer.colour doesn't matter so much.

An experiance I had some years ago made me think. My mates had all gone for an evening hunt in another direction. I got back from my hunt before them. Tahr hunting shelter hollow area. Just on last light I spotted them coming down a face half a k away. Or rather I spotted two of the three. All were wearing swazi jackets. two were wearing camoflage ones, the other was wearing the tussock brown one. The camo had just turned to dark black and you could see distinctly from that distance in low light, sharp edged black silhouettes moving down the face.
The lighter coloured plain jacket was invisible.

We choose our clothing generally going off of what we see in daytime in a store or from adverts. But probably half of our hunting is evening and morning at low light. Id suggest most camo on the market is too dark for those hours.

An older bush hunter I know and respect fairly well swears by three things as far as camo: Any blaze colour is just hi-vis greyscale to a deer, and its a blob that isn't part of the natural surroundings. Any skin showing is going to blow a stalk, particularly hands and face. And most camo designs lack the contrast required to blend in with the background so you just look like a blob anyway. His current thinking is that the stoney creek tuatara is too dark but the alpine is OK, hunters element pattern seems to work best and has put him within feet of deer with the wind right, and army DPM/flecktarn is again too dark. He recently tried wearing blaze camo patterns of both orange and blue and had deer bust off him for the first time in years.

Mind you, if you're rubbish at finding deer in the bush and sneaking in on them, does camo help or hinder your efforts?

Just wear whatever you want to as long as it does the job.
Perhaps in the future technology will revolutionise everything camo wise.
Gillie suits used consistently.....?
Any deer farmer / hunter use then on a consistent basis.

remember the old saying "to shoot dear ,think like a deer"blend into the landscape -have wind in your facer ,be aware of unusual noise . above all and most important -the land is an animals natural environment ,its attuned to it and its varietal foibles .human bloody beings crashing about like oversexed bulldozers stick out like a big boars bollix. same goes for chamois ,tahr ducks geese they possess binocular eyesight -must do ever seen one at specsavers?????.despite our fancy claims re being top of the heap seems its a concept fraught with holes!

Less movement seen the better.

Originally Posted by kotuku

remember the old saying "to shoot dear ,think like a deer"blend into the landscape -have wind in your facer ,be aware of unusual noise . above all and most important -the land is an animals natural environment ,its attuned to it and its varietal foibles .human bloody beings crashing about like oversexed bulldozers stick out like a big boars bollix. same goes for chamois ,tahr ducks geese they possess binocular eyesight -must do ever seen one at specsavers?????.despite our fancy claims re being top of the heap seems its a concept fraught with holes!

Which heap?