I have too, but I did love the old bottomland and the green leaf and fall foliage. Turkey hunting back in the day I wore fall foliage pants and bottomland shirt till the woods greened up then it was a green leaf shirt. If I wear camo now which isn't often it's natgear. I also loved shadow grass till they screwed it all up and put a bunch of black in it. Most camo is to dark.
Exactly right Billy. It is too dark and when you look at it 50 to 75 yards away, it sticks out like a sore thumb because it is a dark blob in the form of a human.
Most camo patterns today are designed to catch buyers and not for camouflage. They look good up close, but in the woods, they suck. A pattern needs large blobs to break up the human form and
NONE of this new "photograph pattern printed" stuff works because those patterns are too busy and too small. At any distance at all, they just run together into a dark blob just like you describe so well.
About 10 years ago, I started buying military surplus camo because it is well made from good materials and won't come apart like so much of what is available from most retailers today. I have had to do a little painting on some of it to make my own pattern, usually to add a little light green or light tan or kaki to make some "
HOLES" in the pattern for "
light" to shine through and break up the human form, but it seems to work about as well as any of the stuff we can buy from outfits like Mossy Oak, Real Tree, and many others. Actually, it works better when I can find it. Places like Sportsman's Guide has it at various times of the year, usually in the off season when many people are not looking for that kind of stuff. By the time hunting season comes around and everyone is looking, it is all gone.
The other problem is that some of you boys have sorta "out grown" your old camo and a lot of the military stuff is sized for younger, shall we say, "less stout" men and that makes it hard finding military stuff to fit.
But I have also looked real hard at the Nat Gear patterns and I like them. They should work very well in many different environments. I hope they are doing good for you.
All the best.
