Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Camouflage: Overrated?

I'm new to hunting and I've been reading around a bit. Right now I'm studying rifle cartridges/ballistics, but I take breaks by "window-shopping" for hunting gear. Camouflage appeals to me, especially the Kryptek and the Sitka line of camo.

But I pause when I see the prices involved, and wonder is it really needed?

I peruse vintage hunting photos and see that many hunters were plenty effective wearing plad shirts and earth-toned slacks. Case in point:


A more current example would be Laramy "Sasquatch" Miller who wanders around hunting Elk with a recurve bow in buckskins.

So to wrap this up: does camouflage enhance the effectiveness of bagging an animal? Or was it just some stroke of marketing genius that duped us into believing we needed camo for a hunt?

Carhartt camo here..

Animals are color blind, they notice movement the most.. but few people can hold perfectly still unless taught to do so in the military, and how to camo themselves...

Camo clothers and rifles are sort of useless, no matter how cool they can look...

during WW2, all pilots who flew observation planes or had observers to do that job, were all color blind.. they were chosen for that job, because what was hidden to folks with normal color vision, was not optically hidden for folks who were color blind....

so to keep yourself hidden from game, you need to be able to hide yourself, behind something or within something where you can see out well, and the animals can't see in very well...
doesn't matter if you dress like Elmer Fudd or John Rambo...

mask your smell, your movements and your outline...

like guys who are riding horses during elk hunting, when they see elk, they dismount and walk on the off side of the horse away from the elk... the elk can see the horse has 6 legs instead of the usual 4... but at the time they don't notice because as I once read wisely said.. elk don't know nor can they count, if a horse had 6 legs or only 4...

I wore camo when I was bow hunting a lot and I remember one occasion that it made all the difference!
Although my camo, being reserved for hunting only, didn't smell like gas or BBQ or aftershave either.
It also gets washed in soap with no UV brighteners.
Does that make any difference? Who knows.

If camo clothes helps get your mind in "hunt" mode, as in, go slow, watch the wind and be invisible. Sure it helps.

Since I'm not working into bow-hunting distance these day I just wear good fabric in earth tones washed with no UV brighteners soap (left over).

I forget the famous bowhunters name, but he killed many head of game while wearing a green plaid shirt and bluejeans.

I agree, I use it but it is overrated.

Fred Bear

green plaid is actually a pretty good "camo" pattern...it breaks up the human outline just like any good camo and better than alot of popular ones currently on the market....

where camo helps is trying to mask movement at close range.....makes sense for bowhunters, absolutely needed? nope but it can actually help....

and patterns like ASAT and the Predator patterns work alot better than alot of the populat over complex nature picture ones cause tose often turn into a solid blob and you might aswell be wearing "Carhart camo".....you need the bigger shapes in contrasting colors to actually break up your outline....

i have camo stuff though i hunt rifle/blaze orange season almost exclusively cause i usually buy it cheap in the off season.....alot of times cheaper than something similar in a solid color.....aint wearing it cause i think i need it.....also helps hide blood stains if yah gotta make an unexpected run to town....

I archery hunt in very suburban to even urban situations on a regular basis. The main reason that I wear very good camo and take extra to hide my outline is so PEOPLE can not see me. Where I hunt it is either public property used for recreation or private property that still has a customer base that may not be in tune with hunting.

So the camouflage is mainly so a jogger, hiker, kids, or other type pedestrians do not even notice that I am there. If they can't see me then they can't bother me, wave to me, talk to me, or otherwise disrupt my hunt.

I think that camo that is carefully matched to the environment in which it is used and is as one poster above points out, kept clean and free of invasive odours, CAN help in one's overall hunting success. I have some and use it, but, since I am only a simple rifle-"meat" hunter, I do not consider it crucial to my success.

Actually, the closest stalk-shot I have ever made was in November, 2006, when, I crept to within less than 10 yards of a Blacktail spike on Vancouver Island and shot him at the base of his skull with my custom Husqy HVA 7x57. It was late afternoon, raining, the entire environment was darkish to medium misty green and my footfalls were silent due to the heavy moss cover on the old "skid trail" I was hunting along.

I was wearing a dark-medium green sweater, cap, Filson's whipcords and brown gloves and I always have a camo neckerchief to hide my handsome visage....I have shot about 20 of these deer so dressed and it seems to work just fine in the typical BC "rainforest".

I do have and like both Cabela's "Outfitter" Micro-Tex clothes and also old Columbia "Trebark" fleece that really blends into the alpine rocks. So, I stick with these and am not going to spend megabux on the latest "digital" or "Opti" ow whatever.....

All of the deer family are colorblind. Any cloth that doesn't shine and breaks up the pattern a bit will do just as well as an expensive camo. What camo works best for is earning a few companies a pot load of money at hunters' expense.

Most camo is made to fool the hunter not the game.
That said I wear it usually because the style jacket or what ever comes that way. As has been said it really isn't necessary as long as you break up your outline be still and mind the wind.
Deer, while color blind, will notice solid color, reflective surfaces quicker than broken pattern dull objects.

I often but not always like to hide from people too.

Remember also that like many things, there is a large mental aspect to this pursuit. If you "think" it helps you, then it does...

Ghillie Suit can't hurt.

I have a few items of hunting clothes that are camo, but I don't consider it essential for deer hunting. For pigeons, magpies crow and probably your Turkey's its much more important.

Personally, I like large bold patterns with lots of contrast such as ASAT, but that is not easily available over here..As a second choice, I quite like MutiCam and given that a variation of this is now the offical cammo pattern for the British Armed Forces, it is much more common..

All the birds that I know of see color so that any bird which is pass shot or shot over decoys would need a camo predator of some sort and that includes face covering. Otherwise just break up the outline including face, reduce the "shine" (bright contrast), and stay down/side wind and go for it.

I wonder why a lot of the big cats have spots? Lots of the animal world has natural camo. Must just be a fad.

I hunt deer in solid fluorescent orange. I shoot deer from 25 feet on out. Sometimes with the close deer I need to wave/move a little so the stop to try to figure out what I am which makes head shots much easier. I've had deer so close I could touch them wearing the orange. I don't thing it's color or pattern that matters.

I use it to hide from people, works for birds. None of my camo matches, I use whatever is best functionally for the current weather.

Kent

Me too...

I occasionally wear a camo top but only if it is a colder day.