Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters hunting clothing that "glows in the dark" to deer eyes?

I vaguely remember reading, in one of the varmint or backpack hunting articles, about some synthetic camouflage clothing that actually stands out brighter to deer, because of the type of cloth used. Whatever the garment is made of reflects more light to a deer's sensitive eyes, so it makes the hunter "glow".

True? not true?

And if it is true, what is the faulty fabric?

..cuz I don't want to use any of that stuff, my chances of being stealthy are already too slim already.

in theory all kinds of stuff will light up, but the thing is its not limited to fabrics, lots of things in their environment do to. I have sat in the open, within 50 yards of a herd of mule deer wearing blue jeans and a blaze orange vest, washed like normal(laundry detergent is supposed to cause any fabric to glow uv) and was completely invisible until i stood up. movement is what matters......some camo patterns, predator/ASAT, CAN help mask some movement and be an aid to bow hunters trying to get every foot closer they can but short of that, movement is what lights you up, not anything you wear

Get a black light and you can check your hunting clothes yourself. But as has been stated, movement is everything.

killed the biggest deer I ever have without a shower, without scent free soaps and camo... and likely having a bit of odor of a dog with me, as he sits in teh stand with me and the gear I wore when bowhunting was in the house... with him...

Play the wind always. Keep the sun at your back if possible but worry the wind. And don't move when they are looking...

Its not rocket science...

Years ago while hunting south of Virginia Beach, I was lost (I mean temporarily disoriented) in a huge swamp, I was trying to figure out how to get back to my car and a doe walked up to within 10 feet of me. She did the "head bob, etc. trying to figure out what I was. She never snorted, etc. but eventually she just walked off probably wondering "what the hell was that?"

I was wearing an orange hat and a vest but never moved and she couldn't figure it out.

I think it was some of the dyes they used.

And some laundry soaps have brighteners in them that do the same thing to any piece washed in it.

Movement, as rattler stated.

Have you noticed EVEN the programs (ads) promoting scent killing sprays, clothing, etc. also subtly say "hunt into the wind" ?

I've never spent 1 cent on any "scent killers" and am not going to either. I've killed WAY too many deer w/o it, so I know from xperience it's not that important.

Hunt INTO or CROSS wind and BE STILL. Wind & movement are EQUAL liabilities, however deer can SMELL you when they can't see you.

UV shows up in the Black Light, if it's important to you.


Jerry

Fluorescent dies work by absorbing light at the blue/ultraviolet end of the spectrum and radiating orange light (or whatever color). If you take a picture with black-and-white film fluorescent orange comes out startlingly white.

However, human eyes and black-and-white film see the entire spectrum from deep red to violet. Deer eyes are not very sensitive to orange. So while fluorescent orange is bright to us it's pretty dim to deer.

NY DEC

Like others have said, had deer walk close to me while wearing blue jeans and a fluorescent orange coat. Me downwind and in absolute sculpture mode of course. Had a really, really nice buck come within 15 paces trying to figure out what that new, odd looking bush was. He'd look away then turn his head back to see if anything changed. Did that at least a half dozen times before getting bored and sauntering back into the trees. I was sitting on an antlerless tag of course.

It's amazing, the number of deer some of us have killed, before we were even aware of all the stuff we have to buy to be able to kill a deer.

I guess ignorance is bliss.

A number of years ago, I had written an opinion that this whole UV thing was a bunch of hooey. I was contacted by a representative of the company that sells the best selling product for UV suppression and asked to have a discussion on the topic with the idea of me doing some testing.

This is all chronicled on my weblog under this category:
Elephant Repellent

It is a weblog, so it's in reverse chronological order.

The bottom line? The product was useless, the claims were false, and the truth is the whole idea of UV reactive dyes in clothing causing a hunter to stand out to deer is complete hokum.

I have several books on the shelf by well known authors that touted this stuff. Some devoted a whole chapter to it. Nobody thought through the real concept of fluorescence. That is, if a material fluoresces, it is taking in light energy at one part of the spectrum and re-radiating it at another. In this case, UV dyes absorb UV and re-radiate in the visible part of the spectrum. If you read that weblog, you can see me coming to that magical "DUH!"

On top of it all, I was a pro-staffer for a certain magazine and nearly got tossed, because I was being critical of a major advertiser. I had to agree to only state things as my opinion. So from some point on, my missives could no longer say "It sucks." I had to say "In my opinion, it sucks."

Anyhow, that's how your beloved shaman got to be the fool in the crowd shouting, "The Emperor is buck naked!"

I'm on the way out the door for the KY Rifle Opener. I'll be out on my stand tomorrow in my UV-Radioactive Clown Suit practicing what I preached. Y'all have a good time.

^^^This!^^^. So damn true.

Deer and most mammels don't see well in the full spectrum as the above folks relate however, birds are a whole nother story. Ducks, crows, geese, and more see are sensative to UV reflectance AND react to badly planned movement. If you hunt decoying birds UV nonreflective cloths may be a good idea.

Over the past few decades, I've seen all sorts of fads come and go in deer hunting. They all seem to hinge on a basic set of premises :

1) There is an invisible force at work. Deer can sense it and Humans cannot. Plug in UV, scent, most recently electromagnetic radiation. Yes, that's right. There's a clothing line that claims that deer can sense your electromagnetic radiation and their clothing blocks it. Jeesh!

2) The product can mask this invisible force and defeat the deer's supernormal ability, making the hunter more successful.

3) Failure of the product to produce the effect needs to be countered by applying more and more of the product until the supernormal ability is counteracted.

Any time you see these things coming together, you know you have a fraud. Some of the manufacturers have been sued by hunters and about all that has been done is enjoin the manufacturers from making their outlandish claims (like 100% scentproof).


I disagree with the folks that want to tell you the opposite. You are not helpless. You can do something about what the deer see or smell. You just don't need $300 Fartlok suits or a $10 bottle of magic spray to do it.

Camo? Camo is great, but does not make you invisible, and a 35 year old M65 field jacket in GI Woodland is just as good as anything marked 4D or High-Def. The anti- UV thing is a complete fraud; having UV dyes on the fabric is a good thing. It enhances contrast.

If you think your camo is UV-radioactive, just wash it in hot water once. You don't need to go overboard. I hunt in this:


. . .and do not feel handicapped. I've shot deer in brown Carharts.

(and how the deer got into those clothes I'll never know!)

Scent: Forget cover scents. Forget any product you've seen marketed to hunters to make you scentless. Get yourself a bag of Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda) . Wash your stuff in it. Wash yourself in it. Store your clothes in it. Without it, I've had deer wind me 70 yards upwind. With it, I've had deer fooled 10 yards downwind and closer.

Here are some more detailed instructions:
Baking Soda -- The shamanic Method

The trick here is just to reduce the level of your stink. Clean clothes and a shower do wonders.

as with most things, it depends, I said in my first post a whole lot of natural things reflect UV and fluorecse. its why they are sensitive to it in the first place, chlorophyll in the leaves of the plants they eat, flowers are a bright beacon in UV as its what things like bees use to track them down. if you live anywhere with granite or similar outcrops the quartz in it flashes strongly aswell as calcite in other rocks. cow pastures positively light up due to the urine.

kinda like those that swear reflective flashes freak out deer, well it depends, in the Pacific Northwest rainforests yeah maybe but out here in the arid west any deer that freaks due to a flash of light is gonna quickly have a nervous breakdown....what environment your in likely dictates some of this stuff....

Again, movement and scent are the biggest enemies.

Phosphates in laundry detergent will make you glow blue they say. That's what enables laundry detergent to give you the "whiter & brighter" effect. The human eye doesn't see the phosphate as blue, but just brighter. I think that's the blue crystals or blue color in a lot of detergents. This is why you should use some sort of camo detergent because it's phosphate free. But I think there's a lot of regular detergent out there now that is also phosphate free.

The deer's eye structure allows them to see the blue side of the spectrum much better than us. However, the human can see the "blaze orange" side of the spectrum and the deer can't. This might shed some light on the subject



Now, how they know this, I have no idea, it might be a lot of BS.

I've had it go both ways, even this year already, based on their eyesight alone.

Buck and doe walk up to my son dressed in a big blaze-orange coat about 15 yards away, and stand there watching him.

Same coat, same day--had two bucks spook from about 1/2 mile away when they somehow could see him on a hillside (not skylined) moving very minimally.

I think much of it is conditioning of the deer--in whatever way that they perceive that color, if they have been around a couple seasons and have been shot at recently by that color object, then they don't stand around trying to figure it out--they know that color means danger.

This becomes easily noticeable when hunting between heavy-pressured public land where they spook at crazy distances, and private un-pressured land where they often come closer to investigate the new color first.

That being said, I don't doubt that certain brighteners make some clothing have a UV glow. It simply depends on whether that glow actually spooks deer or makes them more interested.

Pay attention!

I've been in your shoes and made my self miserable trying to be scent and visibility free. My hunting pard would step in the truck and he'd reek from the terrible sport scent deodorant he was wearing. Boy did I get pissed! Anyway, I was the fool, he killed deer that weekend guess who got skunked? I had a shower routine, would store my clothes in bags with leaves, etc., wear latex gloves when I handled my gear and clothes. It was a pain in the ass routine that made my hunting adventures miserable. The only good thing I got out of it was using tide free and no fabric softener which helped with some family allergies and using canoe bags for my clothes which was intended to keep stuff scent free but ended up a good way to keep my stuff dry and organized. I do like hunting in rubber boots for most of the areas I hunt in mostly to keep my clothes and feet dry, wether it helps or not, only a deer would know and they haven't learned English except in Disney movies.

All of this has taught me a lesson the hard and expensive way. When you buy your clothes, make sure they keep you COMFORTABLE all day on stand or frolicking through the woods! If you need camo for a security blanket, at least get a broken open pattern like asat or predator. The rest blobs up and none of it really matters anyway.

As far as scent proof anything, the only way your going to beat a deer's nose is stay downwind or bury yourself 6 feet under at which point you'll be dead and none of this will matter anyway.

COMFORT, COMFORT, COMFORT! And watch your movement!

I doubt most animals care about color, with an exception to birds. They sure as hell do when it comes to movement and high pressure hunting areas have lots of that!

There's a varmint hunting book I have where the author shot a load of coyotes wearing a Santa Claus outfit to prove camo obsession was bogus!

According to that light spectrum scale, they can't see red. Again, that whole thing might be BS, but it makes sense.