"Camo"

[swampthing]

Anybody using light gray camo in the woods with out snow or treestands? Cabelas "outfitter" KOM/SI grey wool camo, Army gray Digital, gray plaid, etc.. ?
    I understand that deer are keen on movement, but it seems that this stuff is too bright, and it appears to jump out at you because of the light contrast compared to the woods around you.
    Although so do rocks and boulders. Seems that this stuff is good for sitting still, like a rock, but my question is for still hunting/stalking. Too light or just wright?

[lpcjon2]

I have self clinging gray digital tape on all my bows and I do wear a gray longhunter wool shirt gray works fine for me.I think it's all about depth perception when it comes to color I have gum and oak's that are gray barked, and most downed tree limbs are gray as well.

[wingnut]

One thing that I have always believed is that 50% of camo is mental.  If you believe your invisiable, you are.  If not, you need to figure out how too be.

A lot of guys use darker plaids and do great, I like camo with light and dark areas so it blends in with the light filtering into the woods.

My opinion is that if you believe it's too light. . it is.

Mike

[Bill Carlsen]

It seems to me that the best kind of camo is faded or has a pattern that kind of bleeds colors into one another. By far, the best camo to me, has three colors in it, shades of brown, grays and a bit of black. Bigger blotches of black and/or white seem to counteract any camo effect.I have had real good luck wearing the old Hardwoods pattern. It doesn't really bleed the colors into one another but they confuse my eye and my wife, who is an artist and very color sensitive, cannot see me in it  if I am not moving. IMO camo will never make you invisible, just inconspicuous.

[GingivitisKahn]

After the leaves drop around here, gray seems to be the predominate color.  My gray longhunter shirt seems to do just fine for me.

[ron w]

I think its good to not have to much of the same thing. I like grey or malone wool pants,brown camo wool shirt. In the beeches where I hunt alot, the tree trunks and brown leaves on the ground, friends say I dissappear. No matter what you have on ,lack of movement is the key to not being busted.In the spring for turkeys I like the leafy camo gear.

[Warchild]

I use KOM Blowdown with great success. It really blends in trees and on the ground. I dont just use it in late season either, if it is cold enough I use it in early Nov and late Oct. The non-reflective dye that KOM uses is the trick, deer dont even notice me.

[joevan125]

I have a outfit that is ASAT and i have been walking down a logging road and have had deer come out and look toward me and never spook. This stuff must be some pretty good camo because our deer are real jumpy when the season starts.

[ChuckC]

Camo like that is awesome in a tree, not AS much on the ground.  Camo can make you hide (disappear) or it can break you up so that you are in plain sight, but not discernable as a human (or anything else). Both work in their place.

Look up in a leafless tree,  Most of what you see is sky and in the winter months, whitish blue (light gray) is a very predominant color.
ChuckC

[amar911]

Deer or other hoofed animals don't see much in the way of color, so shades of gray are fine. So are other contrasting patterns with a variety of colors. For instance, I think ASAT and Predator camo patterns are generally the best for deer, but ASAT is not good for spring turkey hunting.

This last spring I was turkey hunting using my ASAT leafy camo suit. The deer never saw me unless I was moving, and even then they had trouble seeing me as long as I moved slowly, despite the fact that everything around me was mostly green. But when I was sitting absolutely still in the middle of green vegetation where deer didn't look at me twice, the turkeys stopped dead in their tracks 70 yards away, refused to come closer, became really agitated as they tried to figure out what I was, and then took off when they decided I was out of place. They obviously spotted me because of the color of my camo, because when I went back to camp and changed into my Predator camo with green in the pattern, the turkeys that came to my calls later didn't spot me as long as I didn't move. Unfortunately, I shot at a moving turkey 20 yards away that stopped walking just as I was releasing the string. I shot just ahead of the turkey and it (and the others with it) ran off. But none of them ever saw me; that one just saw an arrow passing a couple of inches in front of its chest.

In my opinion, the Predator fall gray pattern and the ASAT pattern are fantastic for ungulates at any time of year and great with turkeys in the fall season. They are both incredible in treestands in the fall where there are no leaves. Another pattern that is the absolute best in treestands in the late season is Skyline Horizon camo.  http://www.skylinecamo.com/pattern_results.php3?idkey=14   Horizon is unbelievable in a tree during the late season or in snow anytime. When my friends are sitting in a treestand wearing Horizon, I can't find them unless I know where they are sitting and get up close to them. Same thing in snowy conditions. The coveralls can be reversed from the Horizon pattern for treestand hunting to the Apparition pattern for ground hunting. Just order a larger size to go over all your other bulky late season clothing. At $80 it's a bargain, and you don't have to worry about what colors your underlying clothing is unless you take off the coveralls.

Lots of other patterns are great too for other environments, like the Cabela's Outfitter camo. It's like matching the hatches in flyfishing. You just have to remember that fish and turkeys see various colors and deer and other ungulates don't, so shades of gray work well for ungulates while turkeys require color matching too.

Allan