Gore Optifade

Scroll down and watch the video.

I don't know about all of that stuff about how deer see. I only go by experience. The worst camo for deer is the Realtree and all of the dark, busy patterns.
ASAT is good as is Skyline. Blaze orange is the very best, then light gray with a few darker gray sticks through it and I don't think the sticks are needed. You are actually better off in a white "T" shirt then some of the crap they sell. I have looked at racks of camo in the stores and I thought I was in a cave it was so dark. Not a single set would I buy.
Guys buy camo by how it looks to them and it is WRONG. 99% of the stuff sold will not hide you from deer. IT IS TOO DARK and deer can't see the little stripes that make you look like tree bark. You are a big black BLOB to them.
All of the scientific crap going on is just now getting close to what I have known for years and years.
If guys would have bought ASAT and Skyline from the start and stayed away from the dark stuff that hides you from PEOPLE, not deer, there would be no need for any other camo.
Bill Jordon got rich off of fools! He is just now starting to lighten up his camo.
Make yourself look like the sky instead of dirt and be amazed.
I have used snow camo with all of the leaves on the trees and deer never seen me, same with blaze orange.
I can't believe hunters never learn, just believe advertisements.
Holy crap, they are just now finding what works! I have preached it for years!

You and I are on the exact same page. My favorite camo of all time is ASAT. Best camo in the world.

I've never liked all of the black/dark brown crap you buy. It may work well for turkeys but I always get a kick when seeing a hunting show where some hunters have dark black and brown camo on and they are on the prairie hunting antelope or mule deer.

My experience is downwind is everything.
You can wear a white seersucker suit and if you're downwind and move slowly deer won't spook.

I guess the idea is to match your camo pattern to the territory you are hunting.

The current US Marpat digicam exactly matches our North Island Beech forest but sticks out like rottweilers testicles in other types of forest .

I am a novice hunter. Twice we have been in the presence of elk at short ranges and they've never spotted us. Not completely in the open but pretty close with just a couple of trees and stumps around us. That was wearing the old standby military camo. Not the new digital stuff but the old fashioned break up camo. Seems to work very well. I looked at the ASAT website and theirs certainly seems to work. Goot thread .

Ken....

quote:

I guess the idea is to match your camo pattern to the territory you are hunting.

We made a test with ASAT when we first bought it. My friend wore the ASAT pants and Realtree jacket. I got in one stand on my side of a field and he walked across to another stand. When he was halfway across, his legs disappeared but the jacket stuck out big time. It was the same when he got in the tree. I could not see his legs but just the black blob of the jacket.
The coloration of the ASAT took on the color of whatever was around him.
Remember, you are trying to fool deer not other people. You can wear something that a man can pick out at 300 yd's, yet be invisible to deer.
I have stalked deer very close with light gray snow camo in early fall with all of the leaves on the trees. I have used it in a tree stand and the deer caught movement when I extended my bow but could not find me. I drew and shot him, he never moved until the arrow was through him. Same with blaze orange, they never even looked my way.
Don't fall into the matching background trap unless you are hunting birds with color vision.
Even when you are on the ground, deer sort of look up at you, same as when you are off the ground. You are better off blending with the sky behind you, openings in trees, etc then trying to look like a tree because the deer knows EVERY tree, stump, bush and rock where it lives. YOU DON'T BELONG THERE!
With the right coloration, all other colors around you reflect from your camo and you will not be seen. With the dark camo, you can hide behind a bush and be spotted so fast all you will see is tails leaving.
White does not bother them because they have trouble seeing each other in dim light or at dark. They walk single file crossing fields and all of the deer in front will have tails up to show white but the last deer has her's down.
YOU MUST LEARN FROM THE DEER, NOT A BOOK.
Deer are also not concerned with you when it is dark out either. If you walk to your stand and deer are around it, best leave because they will come very close (Less then 10 yd's.) to you and watch you climb the tree. You will not see another deer when the sun comes up.
A trick I used to do was to bang the chain against my home made stand when I was a few hundred yd's from my tree. I made a LOT of noise even when climbing and mounting the stand. Once ready and an arrow was on the bow, I got quiet. In a short time, a buck walked right under my tree looking for what made all that noise, stopped at 20 yd's and took my arrow.
STOP reading and make all of you studies in the field. I can fool deer into thinking I am another deer and have had 17 feeding all around me as close as 15 yd's. I can move around, kneel down, put an arrow on my bow and they will not pay attention to me until I shoot one and will not even know what happened, just that one ran.
The big shot that lucked into a "book" deer can write all kinds of crap and sell it, same as the rich dudes that hunt trophy animals in special places. But they don't know squat about the animal itself.
My teacher wears hair!

Now I want to tell you about a black man that used the very UTMOST in camo!
It was the first muzzle loader hunt at Sleepy Creek state park in Ohio. The place was over run with HUGE deer and the game department and state park got together to allow hunting. We even had free camping. Talking to a lot of great guys in camp, they told me of this fellow crawling around in the open field with a deer skin over him!
None of us could figure out how he escaped being shot. Only that all of us were good hunters and knew what we were looking at.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:

A trick I used to do was to bang the chain against my home made stand when I was a few hundred yd's from my tree.

Damn long chain?

Yeah, I used a chain and binder to go around the tree. I quit using them when a binder broke on me trying to get it tight.

I have sat stands both ground and tree with just jeans and solid color shirt and never spooked an animal because of site. Wind every time will get you, even those guys in the full scentblocker stuff.

I do believe that camo helps conceal slight movements but if you make big movements then all the camo in the world wont help.

Realtree works great of most of Arizona above 3000 feet in elevation.

so - how does a zebra hide?????

The one I shot was not very good at it. Thats for sure!

I have been hunting the better part of forty years. I have had deer literally spitting distance from me, standing in the open in a picked bean feild, wearing jeans and a t-shirt while pheasant hunting, just by holding still, what you wear makes very little difference

Lions EAT Zebras! But yes, the camo works.
Wind is important if it blows your scent to deer but I have little trouble 15 feet up a tree unless the breeze heads to the ground with funny currents. I shower with zest and use normal deodorant's. Get rid of sweat smell. I don't believe in all the junk they sell to make money. You can't fool a deer's nose no matter what you do if the wind is wrong. I never wash or change camo the whole season and I shot 5 deer this year. Just never use laundry detergent with the brighteners in it, or fabric softeners. In the last 5 seasons, I have had only one deer wind me but I had already just shot one so I am not sure if it was the bow noise or not.
I hunted in regular clothes for years as long as they are not dark, you don't need expensive camo. I am the last one to tell you to spend money!
You are stuck if a deer sees you move in a tree and just have to hold still because wind moves a lot. If you drop some leaves it will take their mind off you, that is if you have a few leaves.
The very worst thing you can do when you are on the ground is to freeze when coming face to face with a deer. Act like a deer! Move your upper body the same as they do trying to see what is there. Stamp your foot at them. If you are kneeling, use your fist. NEVER FREEZE! If you do, they run behind cover and watch you. As soon as you move, they are OUT OF THERE. They do NOT know if you are a strange deer or a man. They will not walk past you and will not walk past a strange deer either. If one wants to go past you she will really bang her hoof into the ground because she wants you to get out of the way. The stamp is a recognition signal, don't ignore it and start it first. The pounding stamp means she is irritated because you are in the way. IT IS NOT A DANGER SIGNAL AND DOES NOT LEAVE A DANGER SCENT ON THE GROUND! Please guys, get your nose out of hunting books.
What do you do is you bust a bunch of deer and they run in all directions? STAY PUT! The ones that went the wrong way will come back to find where the leader went. Easy meat in the freezer.
If there are a lot of other hunters in the woods and you are tracking in snow, stop at every clear spot and wait. Deer will run into other hunters and come back to you on the trail they felt safe on.
I have a million things but some of you have shown that you are also keyed in and don't believe what "EXPERTS" say.

Worked for Brigade Quartermasters for a while back in the day, the original marketers of ASAT camo at the time. It was and is good stuff. At the time all mil-spec, thus very tuff, if not the latest technology at the time....

It is one solution though IMO. as MUZZA stated, the idea is to have something that works well in your emvironment. If anybody thinks that good old fashioned Mossy Oak bottomland style camo didn't work in the trees or the ground in southeast US woodalands, well then you just don't know how good a Turkey sees, and how good that stuff hides you--in that environment--brown blob maybe--but it fools the heck out of Turkey AND deer. I have SPIT on deer and other game animals many times--that's right spit on, not just been in spitting range! That with some of the current 'gimmicky' patterns, e.g. Mossy Oak of several ilks (Bottomland, New Break Up, Treestand, and Prarie Grass)

Now I wouldn't wear Mossy Oak or Realtree Prarie Grass style camo in the woodlands of Georgia, but I don't wear Mossy Oak New Break Up in the plains of New Mexico either (Doc pointed out how funny the latter looks on TV sometimes) I like the idea of the Gore Pattern, it makes good scientific sense, but I also know that a good pair of insulated Khaki's in loden, or dark Khaki with a matching shirt work pretty darn well in the Woodlands--kind of close to a deers coat---but I have never seen anything in the appropriate color range, work better than 'Ghillie' style clothing--and that stuff is standard issue for nearly all if not all of the Military Sniper Teams. 3-D don't you know!

Go with what MUZZA said, and try and match your terrain, I know that pattern by Gore shown in the vid won't work in Snow as an example, but if you're close to your terrains pattern, don't have BLUE or YELLOW in the mix, you'll be pretty good to go--if you are still, and as scent free as possible, and if you can make it 3-D it does matter, IMO.

As always YMMV but that's based on mine and a lot of other follks experience>

PS--where can I buy some of this new stuff???