May 29, 2017
If you have been to a hunter safety class, you will have been told the reason is “safety”. Deer cannot distinguish the color, but your fellow hunters can, and for that reason, wearing blaze orange helps enhance safe hunting. But the truth is more complicated, perhaps this post should be called “why don’t hunters wear blaze orange?”
- The reason hunters wear blaze orange is because they have to by state law.
- The reason hunters don’t wear blaze orange is because of the perception it doesn’t camouflage well or isn’t cool.
I suspect most hunters recognize that the big blocks of solid color in an orange vest are going to make them easier to see. Sure, we all know that deer can’t really see the orange, but those big blocks of color tend to stand out. I have been searching for data, but I suspect that in states that don’t require it, a lot fewer hunters are wearing orange.
Yet in a state that requires certain amounts of blaze orange, the hunters most often will be dutifully wearing it.
Maybe.
I see forum posts and Facebook discussions where hunters will talk about taking off their orange vest as soon as they get to their stand. Or I’ll see comments like “I’ll wear it if I think a game warden is around”. If everyone was enthusiastic about wearing hunter orange, the best selling patterns would be orange camo by Realtree or Truetimber, and we know it’s not.
Talking to hunters, especially younger ones, I definitely get the impression that sometimes appearance is everything. Hunter orange is for the old guys, it’s not cool.
At See3D we are hoping maybe we can change this dilemma. Hopefully hunters will be happy wearing an orange vest en route to their spot, and equally as happy to slip on our orange camo 3D suit – knowing it will provide as effective camouflage as anything else on the market.
As effective as anything else? “That’s a bold claim!” I hear you say.
Let’s face it, not too long ago hunters weren’t wearing Sitka or Predator, but still seemed to be doing pretty well. Maybe they were just better hunters? Or maybe there was a lot more driving of deer? Nonetheless, they sure weren’t wearing $500+ of camo!
When it comes down to it, camouflage isn’t essential, it’s giving you an edge. Who knows what that is, let’s say it’s about 5%. If we then look at the different patterns, sure we all like our Chevy or are Ford and won’t wear anything else. But the difference is again, probably about 5% between these different patterns.
So which camo you wear might just be making 5% of 5% difference. That’s just about a quarter of a percent. I don’t know the exact numbers, but just sitting still is probably 50% difference!
Do you wear the orange requirement you are supposed to? Or are you decked out head to toe in your favorite brand?
