How useful is Camoflage ? What do you use?

[Davyd]

What works for you??

I'd be interested to hear the views of other varminters (not just hunters as this is very different from deer hunting) what is the value fo Camo for them? and what do they use?

I hunt largely in open fields but tend to walk/sit along bushy fence lines. The rabbits in partiular will spot and run away from people at more than 150m (they are hunted fairly frequently). So I often end up crawing over very low rises to get a firing postion at ranges 150m plus unless I have just been sitting and waiting and they walk out in fron to me.

It seems the Auscam I wear in summer works very effectively and certainly have scared a number of roos when wearing.
But the realtree hardwoods jacket I wear in cool weather is very comfortable and pragmatic but does not seem hugely effective as camo where I mostly go

[kjd]

I wear auscam for fox shooting! its great.

[lowndsie]

I wear it when all my other clothes are dirty!!!!

[Jack H]

l never used to wear camo, until my last trip out west. Just wore my karki work cloths. But on the last hunt, was stalking a mob of about 10 goats. Managed to get up about 20m behind the last goat in the mob. The billy l was after was near the head of the mob. But while working my way slowly through the scrub, was trying to get a clear shot at the billy and was hold up for a while waiting. After abou 10 minutes l looked around to pick a path forward. And there was a roo and her joey feeding about 8m to the side of me and did not know l was there. That moment changed my thoughts on how usefull camo gear is lt was just aucam. And eventually got my goat too

[Thomo]

I wear a ghillie suit i made, as long as you break up your outline then you will be ok, make sure you cover your hands and face but dont cast to much shadow over your face with a hood or the like as it will look just like a black hole.

There are rules as to Why Things Are Seen,

Shine
Shape
Size
Silhouette (spelling)
Shadow
and Movement

By councilling out these you will become alot harder to see, A big one is the front of your neck and top of chest, it is a great bloody triangle of reflective skin unless you cover it.

[wilko]

it always feels like overkill to me wearing to much camo to just nail a few bunnies but i think that it can be helpful , at short ranges it is rather helpful when the bunny is 20 meters away and dosent know you are there, but laying on top of a dam bank overlooking a paddock as long as i keep a low profile my bunnies dont seem to care too much either way. i tend to lay in the one spot and wait. if they do see me they usually have a few tricks to see if they can get you to move and see if your a threat, so i just lay still, avoid eye contact if its short range, and they loose interest eventually. very slowly line them up and take my time and go for head shots - we need a bunny head exploding emoticon. long time between shots sometimes, but find that if you dont go and retrieve the dead ones the others come out quicker. sometimes when i did pick up the dead i didnt see another bunny in that area for hours. im not too worried as long as i get one good one for the pot im happy just to lay in my paddock in the sun and soak it all in. just my 2 cents worth

some good advise from lowndsie Re: wearing camo when all your other clothes are dirty

[Archfile]

I've taken to wearing a cammo shirt (just a cheapy) when prone for bunnies, it doesnt make much difference when prone, but does definatly help when stalking closer, i got within 90m of one that was looking towards me between each nibble over ther course of 15 minutes..

then i blew him to little bits with the 22-250

the cammo shirt is going with me everytime now, just for that little bit extra cover when you do decide to move (also nailed my first fox wearing it - only the 2nd one i've seen at 1pm before)

(i'm wearing my hunting pants right now. - thinking that i could miss my fiance and drive straight thru and go hunting rather than help her clean up the house we just moved out of, i'm sure she'll understand)

-Arch

[jb747]

The better made camo gear seems to survive out in the field better than other clothing. A little tougher perhaps.

On the other hand, most of our youth seem to think that it's a fashion statement....when they wear it anyway.

[dave]

Just match your surrounding is what i do, havent gone out and bought anything special as such but at the same time i dont get around in a hot pink hey hey its saturday tshirt or anything

[kjd]

why did you have to get within 90m when you have a 22-250 anyway lmao!!!

[dave]

Must have run out of rocks to throw.........

[Archfile]

It was windy as shit and that spot was so exposed i couldnt hold the rifle still in the wind ;-P and it was a kitten so not too large..

(oh, and too steep to use anything as a rest - just a shitty spot for a shot, and totally in the open so moving was time consuming)

[MadMick]

I drive a green ute, does that count?

[ogre6br]

Auscam shirt and a skrim veil will cover most things.

I used it mostly when hunting Crows/ravens- where legal other than that I just got a khaki king gee shirt and patterned it up with a bit of spray paint.
Ong good thing i did was sew into the front of the shirt one of those cheapo roll out foam matts makes a big difference when lying on rough ground.

Breaking up the distintive human shoulder head bump shape has been shown to reduce animals fear of the "thing" in many animal studies.

later
P

Something like this maybe- I cannot remeber the site where I got these pics from.
http://hunters-hut.com/picgallery/displ ... m=15&pos=3
http://hunters-hut.com/picgallery/displ ... m=15&pos=4

[Rule 303]

I presume most animals see colours in the same spectrums. Breaking up your outline is a must but is is no good doing this if you wash your clothes with soaps/detergents that have brightners in it. These apparently show up to animals as aglowing neon light.

When I took this advice on board Iwas able to get alot closer to animals and birds before they took notice. This was with just checked shirts and drab/kakhi pants. This thing about seeing brightners came from research into deer. I found it to work on roos, rabbits, cocky's- feathered variety- and minors.

Cheers