Fieldcraft color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

IMHO, the different camos are for the hunter, not the prey. I've killed deer wearing jeans and a flannel shirt.

If it's on public land, wear orange.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

...Deer are color blind... You can wear whatever color you want. You can even dress up like Robin Hood, it's not going to matter.

If you want to hide yourself from a deer well, find a method of breaking up your outline "body" by wearing something like a ghillie suit if you are that serious. You can spray your entire ghillie suit hunter orange "don't sudgest this" and it's going to work all the same for deer. Always found it funny when people slap all this camo-paint on when they are hunting deer...

Deer also see anything on your person that shine's at all. Ring's, watche's, glasses, anything that reflects sunlight etc.

Besides, most states require a certain amount of hunter orange. Uusally 60% or more has to cover your person.

Good luck with your hunt's,
Lw
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Lonewolf'</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Deer also see anything on your person that shine's at all. Ring's, watche's, glasses, anything that reflects sunlight etc.
</div></div>

Oily skin shines. Wear a mesh facemask with your Robin Hood outfit.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

You can dress like an out of the closet archer if you want, I'd suggest any camo or broken pattern clothing (flannel) you can stay warm in and not be fidgetty (sp?). Also wash it in a scent free wash or baking soda. Deer will smell you farther than they can see you and camo doesn't matter then. It doesn't matter what pattern you wear as long as you aren't moving and don't look like a 2'X6' solid shape. Break your outline with the brush and trees, go scent free, and sit still and wait.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

The cut leaves oversuit seems to be very effective and as stated above the color is irrelevant except:

a. Very light colors catch a deer's eye. Better to have something dark than light.

b. Fluourescent orange tends to glow, even though deer cannot see colors. In the past I have washed orange garments with some anti-glow soap so that they are legal, but don't glow like a Russian nuclear sub.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 500grains</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The cut leaves oversuit seems to be very effective and as stated above the color is irrelevant except:

a. Very light colors catch a deer's eye. Better to have something dark than light.

b. Fluourescent orange tends to glow, even though deer cannot see colors. In the past I have washed orange garments with some anti-glow soap so that they are legal, but don't glow like a Russian nuclear sub. </div></div>

Not to far off.

Deer are not entirely <span style="color: #FF0000">C</span><span style="color: #33CC00">O</span><span style="color: #000099">L</span><span style="color: #FF6666">O</span><span style="color: #990000">R</span> blind in the way most hunter's think. What deer see
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

I use basic Realtee, washed in UV suppressant detergent. On public land I wear an orange vest over it.


Color is not quite as important as behavior and scent.

Greg
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

Greg above is correct whether in NY or Texas. Someone said they had killed deer in Jeans & flanel shirt. I had a 2 hr slot to hunt in a full day once.
Pulled my tie off & in slacks & dress shirt got on the stand about 10:00 & 15min later had to go change clothes to dress a spike.
I dont advocate that as daily practice but good stuff happens too.
smile.gif
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

The only times I may forego wearing orange is when I'm hunting where I might encounter strangers. For the most part, my hunting is coordinated with at least two other hunters, and I maintain a number of 2-way radios so we can be in radio communication.

But you're right, Scott; there is no downside to wearing hunter orange, and I think you may have just led me to change my errant ways...

From the link you posted above:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">There is no law in New York State requiring hunters to wear hunter orange, but most do. Over 80 percent of big game hunters wear it, as well as two out of three small game hunters.</div></div>

Greg
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

id just add that ive noticed all game tends to be less wary if one covers the back of hands and the face. aparrently to animals these make us "a human" along with scent. which camo pattern seems irelevant.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

The eye is important.

Predators stare, and prey animals are evolved to pick out the staring eye. Apparently at least part of our own evolutionary makeup includes that particular instinctive attribute, because our attention is instinctively drawn to the eye buried in the background. Often it's the first part of the animal which catches our attention. It is so instinctual that usually we don't even recognize this first impression, but the autonomic nervous system draws the head; eyes and ears, to the proper direction, and that's when recognition actually occurs.

This is a 'tell', because our instinctual motion often triggers the automatic flight response from the prey. This is something hunters need to practice suppressing. Move the eyes, but restrain the head turn. Do it slowly enough so that the motion is lost in the overall motion of the background. In essence, we are short circuiting the instinctive response, replacing it with a trained alternative response. Often I can sit out in the open for hours, on the edge of the thicket, without being observed. My technique is to merge my motions with the natural motions of the underbrush. As it sways with the wind, I duplicate the frequency and amount of motion, so my image is lost in the natural motion. In this way my camoflage technique is completed, far better than if I remained rigidly still while the rest of the environment moves around me.

The hand's movement is observed as a flash of contrast against the background, triggering another instinctive attribute, picking out motion from the background.

Animals' visual acuity is often very different from ours. Many of them have eyes whose retinas are evolved for entirely different optimisations than humans. Nocturnal animals often lack retinal receptors for certain colors, allowing the retina to be populated in their place with more of the simpler black/white receptors, which are better suited for night visual perception. They see contrasts where we don't, and miss contrasts we see, and their black/white optimization spots motion more effectively.

Those colors are excepted from the visual perception and are sensed as being identical to no visual radiation, and seen as black. Orange and black are visually identical to many prey species, do not visually contrast with each other, and will only work in a breakup pattern when interweaved with colors that the animals <span style="font-style: italic">can</span> sense. For example, putting black and orange together creates precisely the same visual aspect as wearing all black.

Greg
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

Omnifade. Yep I am a camo whore. ACU and nat gear till then with a little orange on da side. I would go with the brush as from a distance it becomes blobs and the break up becomes blob singular.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

ahh yes the age old "tay in da wee-en" "may tay" technique all jody foster-like. my favorite hunting method but i hates when the leeches bites me junk.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: kraigWY</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I never hunted in NY,but for deer and anything else, my favorite color is:

HUNTER ORANGE</div></div>

In New York Hunter Orange over some fasshionable Kevlar would be my choice
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

You rifle hunt or bow hunt?

When I bow hunt from a ground blind I wear something warm and a black cap with a black face net.

In tree stands, anything to break up your outline. The leafy patterns do pretty well.

Rifle hunting, Carhartts and an <span style="color: #FF6600">Hunter Orange</span> vest, just be quite and sit still. I've had does walk under me and not see me till I stood up when they were 10 yards away. Did I mention sit still, if you are in a full ghillie they'll still see you if you are jammin on your iPod and doing the Macarena.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

Rule number 1 the camoflauge is not for the deer.

Rule number 2 the stuff you buy in the store is only to let people in town know you hunt or to let tem know your are in fact a redneck.

Rule number 3 worry about the camo when you get there.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: shaggyback</div><div class="ubbcode-body">IMHO, the different camos are for the hunter, not the prey. I've killed deer wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. </div></div>

+1. Thinking about all the game I've taken, I can't remember wearing camo for any one of them. I recently ran across family "deer camp" photos taken in the 40's and 50's. Ten to fifteen hunters, all standing next to their harvest, and none of them in camouflage.

Maybe deer have gotten more tactical nowadays? Doubt it.
 
Re: color for hunting deer on Long Island & upstate

don't quote me on this, but i think for georgia atleast it's 500 square inches of orange, from the belt up.