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

It's funny. I really love this thread. I'm a pro-staffer for a deer hunting magazine. We get a thread over at that forum about camo, and it goes in the completely opposite direction.

The reason is that a good number of the responders are the kind of guys that read magazines a lot. More importantly, these are the kind of guys that take magazines seriously.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing magazines or magazine articles or magazine writers. It is just that, if you are just getting into hunting, or if you don't have a whole lot of people around you that hunt, you may not know the reality of hunting. I was like that for probably the first decade of my hunting experience.

If you read a magazine, you have people in camo talking about the need for camo. It is all very consumer-oriented information. The question is never "is camo necessary?" It's always "Which camo is best?" When you pick it apart, it all starts looking like grown men diving into the same hole as teen fashion.

I'm somewhat of a heretic, in that I came from that kind of mindset. Over time, I started to question a whole lot of things, and actually started to test ideas. Take camo for instance. I started deliberately hunting in brown Carharts just to see what would happen. Nothing. Eureka!

It is not that camo is counter-productive. It does help up to a point. It is just that you don't necessarily NEED camo, and you also don't NEED to be all that concerned with it.

One other observation and then I need to run. A big difference between the folks here and the folks elsewhere is that you keep hearing from them this idea of "The Edge." It embraces a whole bunch of consumerist attitudes, but basically the idea is that you can somehow buy your way into successful hunting. A better camo will somehow substitute for lack of experience, or practice, or knowledge.

Hmm, interesting observation.

The same is true of other sports, hobbies. Supplements to replace poor nutrition and exercise in the world of athletics, the latest optic/bullet/gadget for guns in the 3 gun world/long range precision/et al.

Seems everything can be improved by going back to basics and refining.

I really like old school camos. Ie: Mossy Oak bottom land. Drake Old School and the BDU mil-surp stuff.

I typically wear a camo shirt with carhartt pants. I like their 'stone' color. It works well.

For sucks, though, I wear the Max-4 Advantage. I really feel ducks/geese can see much better and it's needed to blend into a marsh when they have the arial advantage. And, they see some colors, too.

I believe camo is overrated and certainly, the marketing is clearly aimed at convincing us that we NEED this camo or this newest pattern or ultimately, that our success depends on wearing THEIR latest camo pattern.

We've bought into this to the point of camo becoming "fashionable". If you don't believe that, witness the numbers of seat covers, bedspreads, blankets, cargo shorts, easy chairs, and a multitude of other camo non-hunting "stuff" that is out there.

I don't believe for one second deer, turkeys etc give one whit what you're wearing.

I've bought and worn camo for years and just the last few years have gone away from it for no other reason to convince myself I don't NEED it. I proved my point for good this past spring when I shot a gobbler wearing no camo.


It was wet, rainy and foggy. I was in a little low spot against a little pine tree, peeking around at two gobblers up on a hill when 5 surprised me from my left. I was completely exposed, just against a tree. I ended up moving when they were at about 30 feet just to make them turn. As I slowly moved and raised my gun they just got nervous and changed directions which gave me a shot. They never did recognize me for what I was.

I WAS wearing a headnet to cover my face and gloves. I believe that shining white face is our weakest link, especially at close range. Look at the photo above, my clothing is earthtones and approximately accurate for the landscape, but those hands and that face stand out.

My point is, turkey eyesight is legendary and I managed to kill one without camo, but I believe ANY game animal will key in on movement long before defining what you are.

So I've proven, to myself at least, that camo is not necessary for success. Camo is something relatively new on the scene. Game has been killed for generations without the use of camo.
I still have plenty of camo clothing and will continue to use what I have. But as I replace clothing, I have no need to pay extra for various patented camo patterns.

As far as Sitka gear, I know there are those who love it. I ordered a pair of pants and ended up selling them in the classified ads here. Simply WAY overrated IMO...just not for me at the proud prices they charge. Other non-camo pants will work just as well if not better at lower prices. Not knocking Sitka gear, just not for me.

So there's my $1 and .02 cents worth.

Last fall I shot an elk out of a herd of about 80 that was scattered along an open ridge top and in a basin near the top. The approach was wide open, in plain view, as I climbed 2000' over a mile long hike. The 'cover' was knee high sagebrush, nothing else. I was wearing solid green shirt and pants with a dark blue cap, no camo at all. Since I was in plain sight for the whole time, I moved slowly and tried to keep going straight at them to minimize sideways motion. Finally, at 350 yds (lasered), I decided that I was risking it all to get closer so I took my shot from there.

I planned how I moved and I had the wind. I'm convinced that I could have been wearing a clown suit and got just as close. They just weren't watching. I guess they felt safety in numbers and assumed that no one was dumb enough to climb up to where they were. I shot my cow on a VERY steep place. I rolled her down about 400 yds before dressing her while a group of about a dozen cows stood on a knoll 200 yds away watching me and barking the whole time.

I've started going out of my way NOT to buy camo. However, the "camo mentality" is so entrenched in the industry that it is sometimes difficult to find non-camo gear.

I'd like to have some Cabelas Micro-Tec pants and shirt but they don't make solid colors. Same with the Wooltimate line, all camo. I've bought some LL Bean heavy wool cargo pants in the past year and a solid olive green Columbia soft shell jacket. Not top-of-the-line gear but plenty functional for me and not priced at absurd prices.

I see all types of gear, for instance a rangefinder, that is like $10-$20 more for the camo version vs. plain black.

The camo gear would be funny if it didn't cost so much. Flashlights, trekking poles, fire starters, etc, all a joke. A lot of that stuff is counter productive since I know I'd lose it if it's not a bright color. I'm a klutz. I have a camo knife & arrow head sharpener (it only came in camo) that's I've lost in plain sight a couple times while skinning out animals. I'm not likely to spook a dead deer with a bright orange sharpener.

Then there's the camo toilet paper. Some is marketed as a joke but some is supposed to be serious. The advertized idea is to keep other hunters from seeing your bright white paper and shooting at you. Well, I guess if you want to expose your rosy red to the public, camo TP might be useful, but I'm usually a bit more secluded. My bare non-cammoed fanny will glow in the sunshine a lot more than the TP will.

I try to match the location I'm hunting.

Example, Sitka blacktail buck shot in Alaska at 20'. Fish images on the shirt are Salmon




Whitetail shot in Texas. Fish images on shirt are Seatrout, Reds etc.






It would make no sense to wear a Salmon shirt in Texas just as it wouldn't make sense to wear the Seatrout shirt in Alaska. You have to match your surroundings.

To the guy just getting started, like most of us, I suspect that you may have a somewhat limited budget for items that are used only for hunting.
Please focus your hunting clothes dollar more on the function of the item than the camo pattern. Warmth or waterproof-ness, "quiet" cloth, all trump camo pattern. The good news there is that these positive attributes are most often found in a camo pattern. Don't agonize over which one or pay a premium for the latest and greatest gimmick.

I grew up in a time where the only guys who had camo were bird hunters, followed later by the bow hunters. I killed a lot of stuff before I ever had much camo, including a fair number of called coyotes while wearing flannel shirts and blue jeans. (pure heresy!)

Some have mentioned face covering above - that is truly very important. The human face shines like a lantern in many hunting circumstances.

I once read one of these internet forums where a bunch of guys were trash-talking a guy who had made a very successful coyote calling video, their trash talk relating to the fact that he was wearing tennis shoes instead of camo'ed boots - no way could the footage not be fake... A bunch of guys showing how deeply they'd drank the kool-aid. And people wonder how Obama got elected...

Focus those dollars on fit and function to afford yourself more time out hunting and shooting. That is far more important than camo pattern.

One of the Christmas presents my son recieved from an aunt a couple of years ago was a gag gift that included two rolls of blaze orange TP. I knew that I'd raised a fine young red-neck when weeks later I noticed that those rolls had a place of honor under the back window of his car, one on each side....

like in every other facet of hunting theres a few guys that get it done correctly and a huge majority that might try but get it all screwed up, trying to get it right
http://forum.grumpysperformance.com/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=2353&p=31936#p31936

I am working at getting my wife to make a necktie with camo pattern. That, is another thing altogether.

Reminds me of some of the lingerie ad's with the gals in the camo bikini underwear. Kinda interesting, but it'd only slow me down....

Not a stitch of camo here, though the colors were fairly neutral:

The shiny old Super BlackHawk .44 that I used to pack "way back when" must have blinded him to death....

Even this little mid range guy didn't care.

About the only thing I camo up for is turkey.

Do you want to look like a bush or tag an animal?

We can put a lot of effort into secondary goals. In the ghillie photos linked, two steps in any direction would change the background enough to make the wearer stand out as much as if Steelhead had used a salmon pattern shirt in Texas. Does a ghillie wearer change suits every few feet?

Camo is useful for calling critters that depend on their eyes more than scent (neither deer nor even coyotes fit that definition). I use it for such calling stands.

Animals have keen senses but don't require anywhere near the camo needed to evade military optics with a human brain behind them

For each story of a critter that came close to a camoed human, I and others can report having deer, elk, black bears, coyotes, foxes, etc. within touching distance when we were wearing no camo.

Bottom line however: If it helps a hunter's confidence he should wear it head to foot.

I have an old set of German Flecktarn that i picked up for under 20 bucks in a surplus store in Germany. Works well for Spring turkey and warm weather bowhunts.

I don't wear camo and the best mask for scent is using the wind in your favor, nothing more.