Why camouflage guns?

[kmrcstintn]

a deer's visual acuity is toward movement and anything that contrasts with the background makes it stand out more; even though I have to wear and keep visible blaze orange for certain parts of whitetail, deer, and turkey seasons I wear a blaze jacket and blaze vest that have some camo break up to them...now I have to find an insulated hat to breakup my noggin better; I guess you have the benefit of extended range during firearms season that going all out on camoflauging everything can be bypassed...

Now on clothing, I'm sure I'm not the only one that heard that deer can see blue really well. How many deer have been shot with the hunter wearing blue jeans?

IIRC...deer can see ultraviolet and using detergents that reduce/eliminate ultraviolet 'aura' is another way hunters can blend into their background better

 

[RJM]

I wear camoflage when I duck hunt, but other than that I really don't. I think it makes a difference when bird hunting. I find many of the camo patterns being sold today are just too dark and have patterns that are too sharply detailed, really they seem to be marketed to hunter's eyes and not the prey's eyesight.

 

[CajunBass]

I don't see it as much anymore but when I was a kid the old hunters I hunted with were for the most part farmers. They pretty much just wore the same clothes to hunt they wore for working around the farm. Bib overalls, and old brown barn coats. I suppose they technically were "hunting coats" but they wore them all the time so they smelled like a barn or a tractor shed more than anything else. There was no such thing as blaze orange. Some might have worn a red cap or had a red bandanna sewn to the back of their hunting coat, but not many. I doubt any of those coats had ever been washed, unless you count getting rained on. Almost all of them smoked, cigarettes, cigars, or a pipe or chewed Red Man or Beech Nut.

Those old timers killed a lot of deer, in a day when there weren't near as many deer as there are now.

Oh, to keep this shotgun related, they used everything from Parker and Fox doubles, to J.C. Higgins bolt action shotguns to "single barrels" as everybody called them back them.

 

[DG45]

CajunBass makes a good point. All those old guys smoked or chewed tobacco and many of them drank "strong spirits" too. (Some I knew even made the stuff.) No worries about scent in those days.

I think hunting and fishing are alike in this respect: There are just certain people (maybe 1 out of 20) who seem to be naturals at it, and those people don't need much more than the most minimal gear (a gun and ammo for the hunter, or a fishing rod and a couple of tried and true lures for the fisherman) to bring home more game or more fish than most of us could bag or boat with all the equipment in the sporting goods store. Most of the people who are best at it grew up doing it, and they're good at hunting in the same way that if you played basketball all your life you'd be good at basketball. The other 19 guys buy all the gear but all the gear in the world can't buy what they're really looking for, which is instant skill.

 

[rem870hunter]

i don't have any. the most i did was took white tape and put patches of it here and there. the stock,fore end,barrel, receiver when i went out in the snow after predators. don't know if it worked. i was looking and looking thru my binos,did'nt see anything but a few starlings.