440 replies to this topic

[SteveMcD]

Absolutely.. when upland hunting or hunting public or semi private land during the reguar deer season I will wear blaze orange. However, I tend to bowhunt all of the deer seasons (especially during the regular deer season I will hunt bow hunting only areas exclusively and as a result do not wear blaze orange).

[Doc]

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Doc,

        Found this video that was pretty informative.


Bass Pro Shops Next Gen WOW Factor How Whitetail Deer See

Good video but I have to admit that the picture toward the end of the video where they were kind of showing it in black and white, that big white blob that was the blaze orange vest that she was wearing stuck out like a sore thumb even from what looked like quite a long distance. I'm not sure how a deer would interpret that big white blob. That may differ from deer to deer.

However, she was dead on when she stressed the need to curtail movement. That's not always as easily done as it is to say, but moving things that don't blend into the background are easy for anybody (or anything) to pick up on quickly.

Anyway, thanks for the video. It had some real interesting stuff in it.

Doc

[burmjohn]

cool video! good point doc, thats why camo orange prob would work well. Thats what I got last year camo orange bibs.  Breaks it up a bit, yet still orange as and orange.

[Geno C]

i dont wear orange during bow or anything like that. But i do wear an orange hat during gun season and then when i get to my stand i take it off and swap it for my camo. I always hunt private land where me and my dad are the only hunters allowed to hunt and i never really see any other hunters close by. I prob should be wearing a vest... i usually always hunt in a tree stand so once im settled in i put my orange hat off to the side and out my full camo face mask on.

[Doc]

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i dont wear orange during bow or anything like that. But i do wear an orange hat during gun season and then when i get to my stand i take it off and swap it for my camo. I always hunt private land where me and my dad are the only hunters allowed to hunt and i never really see any other hunters close by. I prob should be wearing a vest... i usually always hunt in a tree stand so once im settled in i put my orange hat off to the side and out my full camo face mask on.

I agree ...... you probably should be wearing a vest. I have a 1000' driveway through a thicket to get down to the road (My property). I won't walk down my driveway in gun season without a blaze orange hat and vest.

Sometimes we put a bit too much trust in our private land always truly being private. I encounter enough trespassers each year to know that simply is not the case.

My feeling is that blaze orange probably has cost me some deer over the years. Inspite of the deer's inability to distinguish color, I still believe that they can detect the intensity and brilliance of blaze orange, regardless of what color it appears to them. However, I have yet to see any deer that is worth any of my limbs, organs or my life. I have seen what a slug does to meat and bones, and there is no way that I ever want to experience any of that first hand on my body just for the sake of harvesting a deer.

Doc

[Doc]

We always talk about blaze orange as just something that goes a long way toward avoiding being mistaken for a deer, but I believe the purposes go much farther than that. At least for me they do.

Yes that is true too that blaze orange does make it hard for you to look like a deer, but it also is important for purposes of letting other hunters know you are there. Over the years, I could not count the number of times I have watched other hunters that had an obvious intent of standing in a spot that I considered way too close to me. That is until they caught a flash of my blaze orange "pumpkin suit" and then they moved on. I'm sure there also is some benefit of having the extra visibility letting other hunters that you are in their line of fire when a deer passes between you.

Yes I know there are some hunters that are color blind. Also, there are some who get so excited you could be wearing a strobe light and it wouldn't make any difference. But I also know that if I am concealed in the woods wearing some of this super camo that is on the market with no blaze orange, likely nobody will see me until it just might be too late. That's a chance I'm not willing to take.

Doc

[erussell]

I don't feel safe without my orange on!! I have run into lots of people in the woods not wearing orange, and it blows my mind. If I can't see you behind the deer I'm about to shoot, that's one's your fault. I went hunting on my Grandfathers land one time and had been sitting there about 10 min when I noticed movement in the thick brush in front of me about 50 yrds away. I didn't raise my gun or point it in that direction but I got ready. Then this guy in full camo trespassing noticed me sitting there and took off on a full run the other way. If there had been a deer in there and I had shot at it I never would have known he was even in the area. It just blows my mind that some people don't wear orange. If I hunt flat land I just wear my orange vest. But if im hunting the mountains I wear a hat to. I don't want to get my face shot off when Im sticking my head up over the hill to see if there is anything on top. Ive been busted by just as many deer when I have been in full camo as when Im in orange. Movement is the key not the color. I found a site somewhere that I am trying to find again where the guy was wearing a Hawaiian shirt bow hunting. It has a bright color but it has a large broken pattern that broke up his outline, and with the way deer see they never paid him any attention. I think some people like to blame the orange because in there mind they are sticking out like a pumpkin, but it's not the orange they are keying in on its the movement. So when a deer gos running off they automatically blame the orange when really they got tired or distracted  and didn't keep there mind on the game and keep there movement to a minimum.

[growalot]

always have in gun season full camo orange from head to toe ...the whole familt does...if you've read some of my post you know why.....

[bubba]

when huntng sate land, I wear orange. On private property no.  Doc are you ready for this one?  I asked the same question of  a dec biologist as to if deer do not see orange, why it the law proposed only during gun season. The response was deer have to be much closer for a bow or muzzleloader, I again replied but if they do not see it, why should it matter.  We went around and around.  I am not in favor of the mandatory orange laws.  My reason is it trains hunters if it isnt orange it is an animal, which is fine except not every person in the woods is a hunter.  Some people hike and others just enjoy nature.  Statistically states with mandatory orange have higher incidents of hunters being shot than we do in NY state.  While teaching my hunter ed and bow ed classes, the eco will tell the class that there has never been a hunting incident in NY where they parties involved were not committing a crime ie illegal deer poaching etc. The hunters who hunt legally and ethically is less likely to shoot you than the chances of you getting hit by lightning.  Hunting is by far the safest and most injury free sport there is.  You are more likely to get hurt in a tree stand accident than a shooting incident.  More peole are killed in tree stand accidents than shooting accidents yearly. 

[Doc]

I have heard the argument that if hunter orange is made mandatory, hunters will automatically gun down anything that isn't orange. In fact Pataki used that line of reasoning when he vetoed the last attempt at a blaze orange law. Personally, I don't buy it, but then I'm not the guy sitting at the desk with the veto pen .... lol.

Several times over the years, I have seen guys in full camo during opening day of gun season on a very heavily pressured parcel of state land. That just plain shouldn't happen, and I have to wonder what is going through the minds of these idiots. I can't think of a single justification for such lunacy. I realize the excellent safety record that NYS has even though we don't have a blaze orange law, and I believe that has more to do with the fact that we have an excellent hunter safety mandatory program that seems to convince almost all hunters to wear the blaze orange. And yet I still see these jerks out there in full camo. And sure enough each year brings another list of people that get shot, mistaken for deer. And if you read the details, quite often they are not in B/O. Also, the headlines often only pay attention to the fatalities, but I am sure that even the wounded victims probably do not think that their experience was exactly a pleasant thing. Missing limbs and organs are not exactly a victimless occurrance. So anytime I see a blaze orange law being offered, I am 100% behind it. There's no reason not to have it.

Doc

[bubba]

as an instructor, I have to say with the stats we see in our meetings almost half of people being shot are wearing blaze.  People are shot by carells hunters who do not follow the simple rules of gun safety.  1 treat every firearm as if i twere loaded 2 always point the muzzle in a safe direction 3 know your target and well beyond 4 keep your finger outside the trigger guard until ready to fire. 

[growalot]

Good for you Doc...the guy that was killed next to us...had full camo...so didn't the shooter...a buck ran full board between them and the shooter opened up like he was shoot skeet....Why nor to shoot at RUNNING deer...reason they nailed the shooter...but not hard enough...that group was out hunting the following Sat...

[Doc]

Certainly, there are incidents where guys dressed in blaze orange get shot. It's hard to imagine, but we know it happens. I also will agree that even when guys in camo are shot, there usually has been some carelessness occuring with irresponsible shooting. However, in that second case, there most likely is shared responsibility with the victim contributing to the shooting.

Here is something that always is rumbling around in my mind. We have this nice saying about being absolutely sure what's behind whatever we are shooting at. Well, in my estimation the only way you can abide by that is to do all your shooting on a certified rifle range where all vegetation in front of the target is removed, and a huge earthen backstop is provided behind what you are shooting at. All rod & gun clubs recognize this as the only way to be sure of what is behind the target and have spent great amounts of money and effort to create that kind of safe shooting area so that they can abide by the rule of, "always ensure that the area behind the target is absolutely clear". But, given the quality of todays camo patterns and colors, on just about any shot taken by any hunter, there is a possibility that some jerk could be hunkered in the background, dressed completely in some of that super-effective camo and be absolutely impossible to see. We've all seen the TV ads that show how totally a hunter can blend into a chunk of woods, and by golly the stuff really does work as advertised. So if we are really serious about being absolutely sure of the background behind the deer we are about to shoot at, we had better be doing all our hunting at the local rifle range. Obviously that isn't very practical, so there has to be some effort expended by all hunters to make themselves appear as obviously as possible as something human that shows up well in the woods.

So, there is at least some reasonable responsibility in terms of how much precaution we take when dressing for safety. As far as I am concerned, the very least effort that satisfies that responsibility is to wear adequate blaze orange. Failing to do that is not only dumb, but it is irresponsible and very well can lead to an accident that can claim as it's victims not only the one shot, but the rest of the life of the shooter. I personally would like to see that responsibility written into law.

Doc

[Doc]

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that group was out hunting the following Sat...

Oh man, that's mighty cold! Human life is held mighty cheap these days.

Doc

[wztirem]

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Certainly, there are incidents where guys dressed in blaze orange get shot. It's hard to imagine, but we know it happens. I also will agree that even when guys in camo are shot, there usually has been some carelessness occuring with irresponsible shooting. However, in that second case, there most likely is shared responsibility with the victim contributing to the shooting.

Here is something that always is rumbling around in my mind. We have this nice saying about being absolutely sure what's behind whatever we are shooting at. Well, in my estimation the only way you can abide by that is to do all your shooting on a certified rifle range where all vegetation in front of the target is removed, and a huge earthen backstop is provided behind what you are shooting at. All rod & gun clubs recognize this as the only way to be sure of what is behind the target and have spent great amounts of money and effort to create that kind of safe shooting area so that they can abide by the rule of, "always ensure that the area behind the target is absolutely clear". But, given the quality of todays camo patterns and colors, on just about any shot taken by any hunter, there is a possibility that some jerk could be hunkered in the background, dressed completely in some of that super-effective camo and be absolutely impossible to see. We've all seen the TV ads that show how totally a hunter can blend into a chunk of woods, and by golly the stuff really does work as advertised. So if we are really serious about being absolutely sure of the background behind the deer we are about to shoot at, we had better be doing all our hunting at the local rifle range. Obviously that isn't very practical, so there has to be some effort expended by all hunters to make themselves appear as obviously as possible as something human that shows up well in the woods.

So, there is at least some reasonable responsibility in terms of how much precaution we take when dressing for safety. As far as I am concerned, the very least effort that satisfies that responsibility is to wear adequate blaze orange. Failing to do that is not only dumb, but it is irresponsible and very well can lead to an accident that can claim as it's victims not only the one shot, but the rest of the life of the shooter. I personally would like to see that responsibility written into law.

Doc

Amen to this POST + + +

[bubba]

I do wear it when I am on the move and on state land. However the question still stands and you brought it up.  If it mkes us all safer, why not durng all big game hunting seasons.  I can shoot someone with my muzzleloader as I can my 25-06.  I can shoot someone just possibly with a bow.  There has to be a reason why only centerfire season.  I can agre there is probably a better chance with long range firearms, but if there is a chance during primitive seasons, it shoudl ebn law then too.

[Doc]

Actually, any time there is a muzzleloading season in process, I do wear blaze orange. It's no different than a shotgun season, just fewer participants.

I don't worry about it too much during bow season, because I don't believe there has ever been a case of a bowhunter accidentally shooting another hunter, thinking he was a deer. The range and nature of a bow doesn't really lend itself to that kind of longer distance mis-interpretation of the target. Also, the nature of an arrow is such that if a target is so obscured that you can't tell the difference between a hunter and a deer an arrow is not likely to get far enough to do any harm. My feeling is that if someone gets killed with an arrow and a claim of target mis-identification, the authorities better start opening up a homicide investigation .... lol.

Doc

[growalot]

I couldn't agree with your post more Doc...bow season is the only time I hit the woods with out blaze orange camo...and hat...mittens...ect...and would love to see it in written law...the other thing I really think should be pressed is teaching these young gun hunters..I've all but given up on the older ones...that you should never pull up and start shooting at a deer running full board across a field or in the woods....actually that's why.... IMO.... every hunter should be required to bow hunt at least one year before being allowed a gun license...let them learn deer can get close and they do stop moving...or at least they walk...and if one doesn't... there will be another out there that will. ppl around here wont do chores with out some orange on and some have there kids walk to the bus stop with hunter orange on...

[papabear]

I wear it only when I'm small game hunting
I hunt deer on privet land and never with water fowl

[sweet old bill]

I wear orange or orange camo during all seasons except the bow season and turkey gun season.