doughboysigep

i like the looks of Natural Grear. You can really "see" how good it looks on tv shows. I just wished they made some bigger sizes. I am "big boned" and could use, say, 3x or so (or bigger).

justhrowit

I jut bought a new calendar, and inside the calendar they stuffed a catalog of this camo I've never heard of.

King's Desert Shadow. Looks pretty good, IMO. Check em out online, although the products seem to be better represented via their catalog.


www.shadowcamo.com


Personally, I'm a R.T Advantage user, and I beleive it works out just fine. I'm not about to go and change all my camo...I'm already broke [:'(]

JagMagMan

The old original Realtree works well for me! I've been in touching distance of deer several times!

mlaubner

Reprinted from Bowhunter®Magazine,

January 1990 by Jim Barnhart



Camouflage. If there is any such thing as a “trademark” for bowhunters, it certainly would have to be camouflage. Sure, there have been a couple of top bowhunters over the years who haven’t worn camo clothing and who have indicated that they felt it wasn’t necessary. But if you talk to and read about the vast majority of bowhunters, famous or otherwise, you will get a virtually unanimous endorsement for total camouflage when hunting whitetails.

The irony I see in this is that while most bowhunters agree that you need camo clothing and equipment, probably no part of our equipment is less understood nor more taken for granted. There are some reasons for the lack of understanding.

First, historically, bowhunters adopted camouflage from the military. Experiences with camo during World War II put the idea into many bowhunters’ heads that camo for the close range work necessary when hunting with bow and arrow made good sense. The problem was, and is, that no military camouflage I know of was ever designed for North American environments. Military camo was designed for use in Europe, the Middle East and various other desert, jungle and forest locations around the globe.

Second, although bowhunters who take their whitetail hunting seriously develop an equipment system through meticulous experimentation, they often make the erroneous assumption that camo is camo; they proceed to select a camo pattern because it “looks good” or “might work well” or because somebody said it was good. Sadly, there are some who don’t think about their camo at all, simply buying whatever is available for the least money in a discount store somewhere.



“…if green was such a

great camo color, the Good

Lord would have made deer,

rabbits, quail, hen pheasants

and so on green.”



Third, all bowhunters, including this writer at one time, have been brainwashed, primarily by the erroneous glut on the market of military style camo patterns, into believing that green is good.
With so many different camo patterns available to the bowhunter, and more appearing daily, what is a person to know what is correct for him?

Frankly, we’re under the impression that a lot of camo now available has been designed like fishing lures, that is, to catch the hunter rather than help catch the quarry. Just because it looks good in a store, or in a small isolated situation, doesn’t mean that a camo pattern will work well under all conditions and at all times of the year. In fact, I reported some years ago in Bowhunter® on part of our research findings which indicated that all camo patterns tested to that point worked sometimes under certain conditions. The problem was that on order to properly camo yourself for deer hunting in different terrains/environments and at different times of the year you had to own four or more different suits.

In order for any camo pattern to be most effective, it must first be composed of large blotches of pattern. Patterns with small blotches become indistinguishable from 12-25 yards under hunting conditions. Small patterns run together and the hunter often appears as an ominous blob, totally out of sync with the surroundings. You can prove this to yourself, just as we did in our research. Select your favorite camo pattern with small blotches, say WW II. Have a buddy wear it or simply hang it up on a tree or bush. Carefully and slowly walk away from the camo, stopping exactly at that point where the blotches become indistinct. How far did you walk? Not far, I'll bet. This is a serious problem for whitetail bowhunters. Our experience and hunting research on movement involving wild animals indicated that there is a buffer boundary zone into which whitetails will not encroach if they think - for any reason - that something is out of place. This is especially true of older, trophy-size animals which have become big by being smart and taking no chances. That zone, depending upon the terrain and habitat, is on average about 35-50 yards.

If your camo quits working at 12 or 15 or 25 yards, what are the chances of Mr. Big Rack getting close enough to give you a shot? The normal reaction of whitetails when they spot you under these circumstances is to smoothly and quietly skirt your position. Sometimes you will have the fun and frustration of seeing this occur. On many other occasions, you will not even know they were there. The camo blotches have to be large enough to make the pattern work for you out to that buffer distance and beyond, or you won't see nearly as many deer as you should.

Large blotches by themselves aren't enough, though. In addition, for camo to be effective under all hunting conditions, there has to be a tonal correctness to the pattern. "Tonal correctness" refers to both color of the pattern and the relationship of the colors to each other.

Here is where most of us really have a tough time due to prior conditioning. In order for the pattern to work effectively, the overall tonal quality has to be light rather than dark. Our research determined that the darker a pattern was overall, the more susceptible it was to being spotted by game animals and birds - and the best at this spotting business was, you guessed it, whitetails!

For example, we found that several types of commercial tiger stripe camo suits composed of all very dark greens and black, were so dark that they blobbed into noticeable objects at a mere 12 yards. Many of the newer commercial camos we tested suffer this same problem. Again, you can prove this to yourself. You will need at least a T-shirt of some light toned camo, such as Day Desert or ASAT®, or certain versions of WW II with tan as the base color (again, here we are beyond the pattern size problem and dealing only with tonal quality). Get two friends to walk around in the woods, get into stands and sit or stand while you watch. I'll bet you'll note the one wearing the toned clothing blends far better into the environment than the one wearing a standard military green - or even the popular commercial gray camo.

This tonal section is a good place to state the facts, which we uncovered about green as a color and tone. As we travel across the country doing seminars and speaking to hunters about camo systems, showing them slides from our research, we answer many questions from folks who take their whitetail hunting very seriously. A frequent question deals with the questioner's concern that he hunts in a "green" environment.

The facts are that even in the greenest of green environments, the color green only represents about 30-35 percent of the total color volume. The remaining color volume is primarily tans, browns and black. Even tree trunks, which are gray, often show up as a light tannish or khaki color when light strikes and is reflected from them.

The green in average white�*tail environments catches our eyes because it is a canopy or blanket surrounding the actual places inside of which we hunt. Once you get into the woods, check around and see how much of what you see is tan, brown or black instead of green. I tell people who are worried about green that if green was such great camo, the Good Lord would have made deer, rabbits, quail, hen pheasants and so on green. What color are these animals and birds? Why, tan, brown and black, of course! How easy are they to spot in those environments where they are found?

The second tonal consideration necessary for a camo pattern to be effective is high contrast. Even with a light overall tonal quality, the pattern will not be effective under all of the whitetail hunting conditions we experience unless there is a high amount of contrast between the colors used to make up the pattern. Our research was conducted with cameras. Pictures are objective representations of what was there at a particular time and place... so long as no tricks, such as special filters, playing with depth of field and so on are employed. Since we wanted as true a rendition of our research photos as possible, we used no camera tricks whatsoever. We basically dealt with light reflectometry, which is, by the way, how we - and deer - and other animals see. We used what we knew and learned about the ability of eyes to distinguish detail and about choosing colors, which fit properly into a proportionate scale. This enabled us to arrive at the correct color scheme for our ASAT® pattern.

Contrast, we discovered, must he designed so that the middle color is about halfway in tone between the light background color and the black of the third color. When a pattern has this contrast built in, it will work superbly in bright, direct sunlight, under low light of early morning/late evening, on cloudy days and every hunting condition in between.

If camo is too dark overall, you have problems like those mentioned above. If, on the other hand, it is too light overall, without the dark patterning in contrast, the pattern can be an attention-caller in shadow, poor light or similar situations. Perhaps the best example of this is Day Desert. While far, far better than other military patterns or newer dark civilian ones, it lacks the full spectrum of contrast and is of limited effectiveness in the situations stated above.

There is yet another characteristic which camo must possess for true effectiveness. The pattern shape must complement as much of the shape of things in the environments where whitetails - or other game animals - are found. Stan and I spent a lot of time studying terrain photos before determining that a linear shape was needed and that this shape had to have a little straight, some mild curvature and a bit of severe curvature to it. A shape possessing all of those characteristics would then simulate over 90 percent of the shapes found in nature anywhere we would hunt. In keeping with the other findings, these shapes would have to be large in size and the colors would hate to be high in contrast, with a khaki tan being the base color.

Again, you can prove this factor to yourself. Walk slowly around in deer country or take photos as we did. You will, upon close study of your pictures determine that the linear shapes with mild to moderate curvature in them are every�*where. Rocks, trees, limbs, bushes, leaf edges and so on all have this shape.

A word about trees is in order here. First of all, let me clearly state that in everything noted in this article, I am not criticizing, knocking or otherwise demeaning any camo pattern. l am simply stating facts I personally discovered through exhaustive re�*search involving camouflage patterns. I make this waiver statement because there are so many different companies now producing some form of camo that imitates trees. And this camo works well at times. But as a matter of your own research, I urge you to apply the above characteristics to it and determine for yourself how effective it is. Are there blotches of color? Is there an overall tonal quality? Is there contrast between the colors? Is the pattern shape linear with mild to moderate curvature?

This is the standard test we ask all hunters to apply to any camo they have or contemplate purchasing. Again, the basic difference is that we want effective camo under all conditions, not limited ones.

You and I know that deer generally know every rock, every bush and every tree in their home woods. They also know that trees normally don't have a funny growth sticking out of the side of it 15 feet off the ground. And they know trees don't draw back bows and shoot arrows at them.

Ever wonder what you look like to a whitetail approaching your position from an angle where the tree trunk is not directly behind you? Make an experiment with your favorite brand of camouflage and you and your bowhunting buddies may be in for a big shock. It all goes back to characteristics. When you're silhouetted, your camo had better be light in tone to blend with the sky, have contrast so you look like everything else there so you are indistinct, not distinct, and its shape better be like everything else, too. With camo possessing the effective characteristics, you don't have nearly the problems if you become silhouetted, caught in the open or whatever.

In short, you want your camo to work for you at the critical moment. And let's face it, in every whitetail bowhunting situation, camo may not be a critical factor. If you're high enough, if the wind is right, if you are immobile at the right tunes, even Big Daddy may come right in on you and give you that once-in�*a-lifetime shot. Even if you were wearing a white tux and tails! But, that's not why I wear camo. I wear it so that when it really counts, the animals cannot spot me and come in anyway. And, I wear it so that when I must move, as when I stand up and draw the bow, I can move with confidence that I can get away with far more because I blend into everything out there, rather than appear ominous and unlike things deer know don't move that way.

Look, one of the greatest things about all this is that America is a free country. I can't make you wear anything. There is a definite period of adjustment when wearing light camo because of that brainwashing and conditioning we spoke about. You may wonder whether you are more visible. But, believe me, you are not! Light is better!

A final word: Don't expect miracles. No camo system yet devised will make you invisible to those elusive whitetails. Further, no camo system can help you smell good to those superior whitetail noses. And, no camo system can keep you totally quiet, or keep you from moving too much or at the wrong time. But the ASAT® system can, if used as directed, help save the day for you at those very critical times, provided you do these other things correctly.


(Just thought you'd like to know)