I’m not trying to troll, I’m genuinely curious. Thinking about deer specifically, it doesn’t seem like visual camouflage would really help much when hunting them. Deer sense predators by sensitive hearing (big ears) and smell (long snout). Their eyes are on the sides of their head, so they detect motion rather than high-resolution.
So trying to blend in with the surroundings doesn’t seem to be an advantage in this case. Assuming all this, what’s the point of clothing with camo print on it?
For deer camo is irrelevant because most cases you have to wear hunter orange (or pink) because you don’t want to die by being shot by another hunter. Also the deer don’t really notice the orange so it works out. If you strictly hunt deer you should focus on staying warm and wear hunter orange, camo doesn’t matter.
For waterfowl and Turkey especially though camo is necessary. Birds are really good at seeing danger so if you don’t blend in you have almost no chance of getting one.
The reason a deer hunter would likely be wearing camo is they also hunt turkey/waterfowl and gear isn’t free so they use a lot of the same gear for both seasons.
At least this is why I wear camo while hunting, I do both, but I’m fully aware it doesn’t matter for the deer. The gear is just good for long duration outdoor activity in all weather.
I assumed the job of the camp was to break up the silhouette more than make the person invisible. Humans know an orange hat and strap comes from the store; deer do not. Is that really not the case?
Well camo doesn’t make people invisible obviously, but it’s good enough to fool birds or people at a distance if there isn’t much movement.
There’s lots of photo examples of this online where entire hunter tents and hunters are very hard to discern from the forest itself which is effectively invisible if you’re deciding to take a shot or not.
so like when hunting fowl you just take the danger of getting shot?
When deer hunting you’re firing a big ass heavy bullet that can travel and be lethal for a long ways.
Birds are hunted with small pellets that dissipate energy a lot more quickly.
Not OP, but yeah, basically. Lots of incidents of hunters getting shot while turkey hunting.
ok. so I guess its just that the wounds are less severe since its buckshot or whatever but deershot will like be bad enough you want the orange?
Birdshot. Buckshot is for deer, never heard it called deer shot.
Buckshot is about 10 lead balls, each one roughly the size of a 9mm bullet. It’ll absolutely fuck you up.
Slugs are more common, though. That’s just a single 1+ oz projectile. Will also ruin your day.
Birdshot is hundreds of pellets, ranging from .05" - .18" diameter. They lose energy quick, so if you’re 50+ yards away, they might not even break skin.
There’s dove hunts where hunters completely surround a field and send their dogs in to scare up the birds. They’re constantly getting hit by other hunters’ shots from the other side of the field but nobody gets hurt.
Birshot shot needs a fair bit more distance than that to not break the skin in my experience, even for 20 gauge.
I wish I had not witnessed these things to know for sure…
yeah my use of terms is generally pretty random with only a hint of possible relation to the real ones. in my head I thought buckshot was the weak one so my brain made up deershot.
With deer you’re typically using ammo such as a .308 or .243 Winchester. These are long range high velocity rounds that have very high lethality.
The long range part is important, a hunter 200 yards away wearing camo is probably mostly invisible and a hunter taking a shot at a deer at 200 or even 300 yards isn’t uncommon with this type of ammunition.
Shotgun shells have lots of small balls, they will often be concentrated more by a choke when people hunt birds, but their effective range and velocity combined with not being a solid mass make them way less dangerous the farther from the shooter they get.
This also means nobody is taking shots over long distances so the chances of noticing a hunter in camo is higher overall.
That said people do definitely get hit while wearing camo as was said above, it’s a risk, but if you know where you are and know your fellow hunters aren’t doing unsafe things those risks can be mitigated.
Buckshot is intended to hunt deer. Turkey shot consists of much smaller pellets, which can still do significant damage to a human, but the effective range is lesser due to the way the shot spreads out. Turkeys also see colors differently from deer, so while you can wear blaze orange and not spook the deer, you will absolutely be spotted by a turkey.
There is definitely a fashion aspect to camo. Less so in hunting, and more so in the military world. Relevant fashion podcast:
https://www.articlesofinterest.co/podcast/episode/39c00bac/gear-chapter-5
The rare times I have been hunting we wore blaze orange hats & vests with no camo at all. Not getting shot by accident was priority #1, avoiding hypothermia was priority #2.
Love articles of interest! Going through their season on ivy now, the military history season is up next for me.
@kersploosh@sh.itjust.works I replied to your DM. Can you take a look at this?
As someone who lives in northern BC: only city folk/wannabe hunter cosplayers bother with camo. Sweats and sunglasses work fine.
I know several people that dont even leave their truck to shoot unless they actually need to.
My dad lives in the sticks and always makes fun of hunters with their fancy multicam outfits and $1000 scopes since he frequently gets entire families of deer at his doorstep. He jokes he could take one out with a .22
I know several people that dont even leave their truck to shoot unless they actually need to.
in the US that’s illegal.
Well, I’m not in the US, and even if it is illegal here in Canada, there are so many back roads and abandoned forestry trails you would have to either be incredibly unlucky or an idiot to get caught.
just pointing it out so dumbasses in the US won’t go, “that’s a great idea!”
Yeah, the smart ones do it from a road at night with a spotlight… no camo required there either.
… I honestly can’t decide if I should tag this with an /s or not because it is 100% a thing that happens (also 100% illegal, especially when off-season, no license, and you throw in the case of natty ice, but when has that stopped a determined redneck)
I have run across so many “hunters” doing exactly this so many times in my youth while backroading.
you’re absolutely right. the only thing that can stop a determined redneck is a lack of “ambition” (beer or ammo).
It’s not always to actually shoot the deer, when you see hunters at night using spotlights to, well, spot deer. We used to do it when I was 18 as well. It was more to find and designate feeding places for the deer and then plan shooting spots based on that.
I hunt in whaterever I’m OK with getting dirty but I always have a blaze orange hat because someone shot at me when I was a teenager.
People already covered a few reasons deer hunters wear camo (only wanting one set of hunting clothes, camo does work on deer to an extent, etc). I’ll add a couple of other reasons.
Many hunting seasons overlap, so someone might head out early on a Saturday morning to their hunting area to hunt for deer then spend the heat of the day hunting birds. Or maybe they have a license for both bear and deer, and they’ll take what they see.
Second, camo works on humans. Non-hunters absolutely love to mess with hunters. I have several stories of waking up hours before dawn, driving to a place I can hunt, sitting in a tree stand in the freezing cold waiting for dawn, and then having a random person spot me from the road, then hike up to me to tell me I’m not allowed to be there cause Mr X doesnt let people hunt on his property (despite the fact that I have a signed permission note from Mr X). Or someone who doesn’t think hunting should be allowed spotting me and then just letting their dogs off leash through the woods to flush away any deer, despite the fact that if I had a dog with me while hunting, it would be illegal because of how stressing it is for deer to be chased by dogs. Or the DNR officer doing their job by checking to make sure I have permission, the proper licenses, weaponry, square inches of pure blaze orange, etc, and next thing you know, you’ve lost 1 of the 2 days you’ll be able to hunt that season. You only have a few prime hours per day, and having a person show up during that time will keep deer away for the rest of that window.
It’s far easier to just hide from people.
Edit: and another thing I just remembered to add, camo lets other people know you are likely a hunter. If you are just walking the woods with shorts, a t-shirt, and a weapon, you will likely freak some people out.
Thanks for the write-up, very good explanation.
Depends on the deer. Some species have good eyesight. If you live on a big open field that is a very effective way to detect predators.
Breaking up the contour of your human shape is why you have camo when hunting animals with poor colour vision. They can’t tell if you’re a boulder or human but no big gray blob is supposed to move. Grass and branches swaying in the wind are all over the place.
You may also use the same clothes for hunting birds, which usually have very good vision, including color.
Most of the hunters I know sit in a tree stand and chug Busch lights. So it’s basically a sniper nest. And they wear camo because… reasons?
To better break up the contour of the the arm when they lift the beer can.
Brilliant. They even make camo Busch light cans. Guess they thought of everything!
There is also no shortage of people willing to sell you something you think works.
Golfers buy expensive clubs, gamers buy expensive hardware, hunters buy expensive clothes. None of it is guaranteed make you more successful, but I’ll sell you this golf ball polish that is guaranteed to make your slice go 10m further off into the rough for only $5.99
Gold plated, vacuum sealed $50 HDMI cables.
Just look up how much an active thunderbolt usbc cable costs.
About $60. They put the transceivers on either end of the cable. Only necessary if you require 40 Gbps at distances over 2.5’ or .8m. Not necessary for most applications, including 8k streaming.
A gen5 NVME can read at about 15 Gbps, which will not saturate the thunderbolt at 20Gbps unless you have a raid array. At 40Gbps, you would need three sticks. You will ALSO need that much hardware on the other end to sustain the transfer.
My friend paid $100 (roughly $150 today) for one of these cables around 2008/2009 when HDTVs were fairly new. $50 would be a bargain comparatively.
Was it a Monster cable?
Most ones here will either spot a deer while doing their farm runs and then go and hike around the area trying to track it down. Shooting deer from a helicopter or dugout is extremely looked down on. (shooting ducks from a bivy is fine tho).
And why wear full camo except for orange hat? Since deer can’t see colour, wouldn’t orange camo be safer?
Hat is usually the first thing you see and they are cheap.
If you hunt e.g. birds with the same clothes they have better colour vision than we do so it would not work.
There is orange camo if you want to invest in color bilnd only hunting gear.
If you hunt e.g. birds with the same clothes they have better colour vision than we do so it would not work.
Ah, thanks for explaining.
Blaze Orange is legally required in some jurisdictions. The idea is that it signals to other hunters that you are a human, don’t shoot. But people are stupid and I would rather they didn’t see me at all.
it’s a legal requirement for anyone in an hunting area, even if you aren’t hunting. i am a hiker/bike rider and we are required to wear blaze or orange in in any state park during the fall because of hunting season. also your dog is supposed to be wearing it
it’s common for people/dogs to get shot during hunting season.
It’s not a legal requirement in my province.
Orange camo is a thing.
https://www.amazon.com/Volein-Hunting-Lightweight-Closure-XX-Large/dp/B0BGXHKQRM
Bluddaman asking the most controversial question I’ve ever seen on a Wednesday at this time
Yeah, I never understood the camo with an orange vest.
Hunt birds with great colour vision with the same clothes. Put on a cheap vest when hunting deer instead of a whole expensive new jacket.
Camo is probably cosplay when they’re hunting deer, but the orange vest is specifically for other humans who somehow have worse eyesight than deer and will shoot you because the camo worked on them better than it worked on the animal they’re hunting.
Drinking and hunting has always been a thing.
Maybe we should ask the animals what camo works best instead of asking humans.
It’s all about stimuli. I’m sure most hunters have sat for hours without seeing a thing only to absent-mindedly stumble on a deer while noisily walking or riding back home. Deer might react to a stimulus, but they won’t react to nothing… obviously right? I’ve had deer snap their heads straight to me because of a slight movement I made. While others have just kept an eye on me while they continued whatever they were doing. The point is to give them as little to react to as possible while actively trying to hunt.
Another aspect is that’s simply what is available. I’ve got nice warm camo bibs because they are made with soft quiet fabric. My buddy who ice fishes has warm bibs as well that are not camo but noisy as hell because fishermen don’t need to worry about noise. There’s almost no options for warm and quiet clothing that isn’t camo.
The first paragraph didn’t really seem to matter with regard to camo. The second one makes sense. If there were non-camo options for silent clothing, would you pick one over the other?
I’d pick camo for the reasons in the first paragraph. Both options are equal with regard to sound but camo is superior with regard to breaking up your outline. Even if it’s barely an advantage, it’s still an advantage. That being said if my only option was non-camo, I wouldn’t be worried.
Hunters try to account for the deers senses, approaching from up wind so they cant smell you. Sneaking so they cant hear you, it makes sense that you’d also use camo so they cant see you.
Most of the hunters I know go for the hi vis orange camo so you stand out to humans but not deer since they cannot see the colours.
But if you’re moving slowly, isn’t that enough? The camo still seems useless in this context. I get wearing orange but as far as I can tell, the camo pattern is entirely useless.
Breaking up your silhouette is the advantage, but for deer specifically the woodland color palette isn’t doing anything. However its really common to hunt more than one kind of animal, and fowl in particular have great eyesight.
That being said, plenty of old timers hunt okay in standard outdoor gear and use the environment for their concealment. The high end stuff is absolutely for the larpers.
Right I’m just thinking of it with regard to deer hunting which afaik is the most popular type. Duck hunters, turkey hunters, sure… camo would help. But there’s so much “lifestyle gear” specifically depicting deer hunting which is all camo print.
It still breaks up the hunter’s pattern and is still an advantage to look like sticks and leaves even if deer see sticks and leaves differently than we do.
Is this a fact or speculation?
It’s fact that breaking up your outline works, just Google “science deer camouflage.”
It’s common sense that if you dress like a tree, you’ll look like a tree to a deer no matter how they see trees. If they see trees as yellow triangles and you dress like a tree, you’d look like a yellow triangle to a deer. The only other thing is they see UV better, so don’t use UV reflective cloth or you’d look like a strange glowing yellow rectangle.
I cant say, im not a deer
This is a blog post talking about their camouflage product but it still goes over why it is effective for ungulates and they specifically reference deer
https://www.hunterselement.com/pages/desolve-veil-camouflage
Everything about hunting is just down homey cosplay.
Now for the ones who hunt Turkeys. There is a value in the head to toe camo as Turkeys have unreal eyesight and can see UV light.
I just shoot deer off my back porch in jeans and a T-shirt, personally.
That’s the dream. Non-hunters (and some hunters) have this idea that hunting should be difficult. I think it just needs to be humane and sustainable. When you try to add difficulty, you often make it less humane and/or sustainable.
Don’t get me wrong, a tricky bow hunt in a far flung wilderness sounds fun, but if I had to chose between that and reliably filling my freezer from my back porch, I would pick that.
The lengths some folks go to hunt, just nah, but not everyone lives in the woods like I do. I don’t claim to be a hunter of any sort. I just occasionally harvest supper from the forest, just like the chanterelles that grow in the leaf litter, they show themselves to me when I can use them. I get a small break on my property taxes for keeping the majority of it a natural habitat and the woods bless me from time to time.
What do you drink during this activity?
I really only ever drink coffee or water. I don’t drink alcohol except for very rare social events. I’m probably a bit of a spoiler for your statistics.
Yeah, it’s less fun if you don’t fit the stereotype
Sorry, I guess.
I think I’m less upset by all this than the deer.
The deer aren’t upset about a thing.
Elephants like shifting logs.
Dissection is fun for frogs.
my BIL does this with gophers/moles and drinks corona w/ lime at his vacation property.
He works in insurance.
Pissweisser most likely.
Ew, no.
