Thread: Ever been shot at? Blaze vs Camo

Originally Posted by kruza

I went into the ruahines least a dozen years back, get away from rat race for a while. As I got to where I was entering I noticed a group of 4 guys getting ready to head in hunting. Something bugged me about them and it took half a minute to figure out that everything they had was new. From boots to guns. Personally I don't know one serious hunter who doesn't have at least one piece of worn/used Bush kit.
I walked up said hi, asked where they were from and what they were upto. Answer was a major city further north and off hunting for a couple of days. I asked what area they hunting, got a generalized area, told them to enjoy their couple of days hunting and trekked off in the totally opposite direction. I wouldn't have cared if I had flashing neon lights, I wouldn't have considered that area safe. I personally believe it doesn't matter what the colour is, some ppl will shoot at movement, or shape. Bright orange might save your life, it might also be the spot of colour amongst the scrub that someone further out takes a snap shot at.
plain camo the same, a random movement that must be a deer moving that Bush.
Its not the gear but more the shooters who either inexperienced, over eager, not versed in hunting or what ever, that is the issue. Identify your target, simple but not always followed.
Had a mate who had good head strapped to his pack, mistaken for a deer. The venison in his pack stopped the bullet. Its scary to know ppl who nearly died because someone overlooked the most basic rule of hunting.

Definitely understand where you are coming from. I think it’s important to remember that history shows us mistakes come from the experienced aswell. The brain can work in funny ways - it pays to be aware of yourself irregardless of how sensible you think you are.

After reading some of these stories I would have to say thank goodness there are so many poor shots out there or there would be a lot less of you on this forum today.

I think if I was shot 4 - 5 times I would be getting out of the game however you would have to keep asking yourself how it could ever happen again so maybe your thought pattern would be surely I can't get shot again

Certainly makes you weary of people, even mates, or situations. But you can’t fully mitigate dumb fucks or people who just want to shoot you.

Personal experience with mates farm deer. Hanging various clothing items on fence. Ridgeline blaze orange disruptive pattern vest not worried, same with most well worn clothing. Blaze blue they wouldn’t go near for a few days. Warehouse flouro tops they wouldn’t go near period. Hunting and fishing blaze green disruptive pattern top was ok, had been plain washed a few times. Have shot more than my fair share when wearing old blue jeans too.

A little off topic but related, for those who agree deer lack a uv light filter

This is a test of blaze and normal Camo, greens and blacks used for hunting. All of my gear is religiously washed in Atsko SportsWash (last few years) and prior to that I used Baking Soda. The first shot is our family washing powder to show the UV brighteners. The next shots are in my attic, so not totally dark but you can see the shine, probably from brighteners in the parent material. You can see the difference in the orange vs blaze with brighteners.

Interested to hear if anyone has tested this before, if the Atsko uv killer products work?

https://youtu.be/WvSFkR_y4ac

I'm interested in the UV side of things and don't use any product at all when washing my hunting clothes. It's really not necessary.

My concern with blaze orange is how similar it can look to red deer. When the reds have that bright orange coat and a bit of supple jack covering them its amazing how close it looks to blaze orange. I think the best bit of advice I saw in those articles was "if you choose blaze orange, get a new one each season". I reckon faded blaze orange is the worst thing to wear hunting reds.

My take away from this thread is to definitely get some of the pink track tape.

I've been taking a couple of young fellas hunting, I bought them some blaze orange gear.

One thing I have been drilling into them was something I read a few years ago - any movement etc, is a person (or dog) until you can prove otherwise.

Originally Posted by Cigar

I've been taking a couple of young fellas hunting, I bought them some blaze orange gear.

One thing I have been drilling into them was something I read a few years ago - any movement etc, is a person (or dog) until you can prove otherwise.

That make perfect sense. When people get excited or nervous, the brain seems ignore some signals such as pain, and tend to capture imaginary image and process it with low matching rate than the real one. Long time ago, we went for wolf and gazelle hunting, we traveled at middle of night, everybody was excited and looked out of window for any signs of animals. There was cow, big one just near the "road" side, and I heard one shot, but the cow was lucky. So, a cow to a gazelle or wolf should be very distinctive, right? Maybe I was totally wrong, but I still prefer to wear these colors: gray, mud, GI green, light blue

If you want to where camo , hunting and not be seen the old Hawaiian shirt is the best camo you can get .

Those Flourescent hunting caps are the bollocks, can see an orange dot a long way off

unless you are red/green colorblind.....LOL why I wear a nato blue tepari products one.....

I was searching for a report I read recently that had some info on reasons for hunting shootings. I didn't find the one I wanted, but did find another one that said hunters of one generation (born 1950 to 1969) are responsible for 75% of accidental shootings.

Haven't been shot at, but have been under the path of bomb ups ridge to ridge and that sort of stupidity.

I did have a bit of a learning with the fern areas like the Pureora and Kaimais where the dried ferns turn a really crackly orange colour - a mate was wandering ahead of me in an older blaze mesh shirt (quite faded). In the sunlight breaking up into bars of light and shadow in the bush, and the predominantly orange dried fern around he basically disappeared - couldn't ask for more effective camo to be honest. Matey was about 10-20m in front of me and his pack hat and trousers in green forest camo were visible, floating around this invisible torso and arms. Unreal how good a camo it was...

About 30-40mins later, I briefly saw a red moving away to our left, mate never saw it but did smell it. In summer coat, it was almost exactly the same shade of orange as the ferns and me mate. No crap neither, the deer was doing the same 'disembodied' thing as it was moving through the bars of light and shadow - bloody uncanny how accurate a colour match it was. If I wasn't aware of what the mate looked like from a few moments earlier the brain could have definitely played the 'it's a deer' trick on me when I next looked at him. I got me mate to take his shirt off and showed him how much it blended in, he was surprised as!

The lesson for me is if you are wearing blaze, make sure it's still effective blaze i.e. it bloody stands out no B.S. or possibility of blending in with background natural colours otherwise its possible two things can happen, first is you have a false sense of confidence and second, you are not nearly as visible as you expect.