I've read a lot about whether camouflage has any value in hunting. Pretty much every hunting show you watch on TV the hosts and guests are wearing camo of one sort or another. Most of the time they are wearing the camo brand that is sponsoring their show. Not very objective in my opinion. Every time this topic arises on one forum or another there is the army of camo detractors who claim they wear a flannel, blaze orange, or nothing but a giant diaper and have no problem taking game. A simple history lesson tells us that camo is not necessary for taking game, after all mankind killed many woolly mammoths, buffalo, antelope, and deer long before the advent of camouflage attire.

As a hunter I've killed game while wearing non-camo clothing. I've come to realize when your sitting in an elevated blind, or ground blind, with a rifle that can shoot hundreds of yards what you are wearing is relatively moot. Most game animals detect shapes, movement, and scent which is why being upwind and staying relatively still will probably contribute more to your hunting success than what you are wearing.

But selling camouflage clothing is a multi-million (billion?) dollar per year industry, and just like we love the newest EoTech or Surefire flashlight hunters dig their camo clothing. This year I will be bow hunting for the first time (from the ground) for whitetail deer. Since I will no longer be in a elevated stand or blind, concealed behind a fabric or wooden wall, whatever advantage I can get I'm going to take. But, I'm also on a tight budget, and the few articles of camo clothing I own were from clearance racks (so no big name brand or scent lock type stuff was tested in this "study"). What I disliked about all the name brand camo clothing carried at the big-box retailers is that every picture of it looks like the marketing guys found the perfect tree and branches to match the pattern on the clothing. That is all well and good if you are hunting in a spot that perfectly matches your shirt, but what about in the real world where you may be on the move, stalking, transitioning from your car to your spot, etc. and moving through environments that change.

I bought a new pair of camo pants and shirt (I went with Predator Deception) for the upcoming season and decided to test it out to answer that age old question, does camo make a difference? I will be hunting from the ground, so all my tests were at ground level.

Method:
I have three distinct environments on my property (where I live and plan to hunt this year). First is a swampy area that has about one foot of standing water from the spring snow melt to about mid summer until it all evaporates. Second is some heavy brush. And third is an area of fairly dense standing pine trees. I positioned myself in each area at ten yards and again at twenty yards. I was using an 8 megapixel pocket camera on a tripod. The pictures were taken between 10 am and 12 noon, so there was some shifting of shadows and light. Each picture set is in color and then converted to black ad white using a photo editing program. This is to compare how a prey that sees in color (turkey for example) would see a hunter versus a prey that sees in black and white (deer for example) would see the same hunter. Other than cropping the pictures, no computer alteration was done (e.g. gamma or contrast adjustment).

Hunting outfits were:
#1 - Yellow and black flannel shirt, carhart pants, and tan baseball cap
#2 - Yellow and black flannel shirt, carhart pants, fleece blaze orange vest, and tan baseball cap
#3 - Carhart pants, Mil Surplus Flectarn hooded jacket (unlined, bought online for $17), Marpat desert camo boonie hat
#4 - Carhart pants, Next G1 Vista parka (clearance rack at Gander Mountain for $40), Marpat desert camo boonie hat
#5 - Russell RealTree AP BDU pants, Russell RealTree AP long sleeve t-shrt, Russell RealTree AP boonie hat (got all three items on clearance for $40)
#6 - Predator Deception BDU pants, Predator Deception BDU 1/4 zip long sleeve shirt, Predator Deception boonie hat, Predator Deception neck gator (first hunting gear I paid full price for, all four items were $140).

In the following sets, camo patterns are (from left to right): Flannel, blaze orange, flectarn, Next G1 Vista, RealTree AP, Predator Deception

Here I am position in front of some trees in my swamp area. Not much foliage on the ground, mostly just dried mud. Camera at ten yards. Unfortunately, the Flannel and Flectarn  pictures were blurred to badly too use.

Same area (swamp) at twenty yards.



This shot is on the outskirts of the swamp as it transitions to the brush area. Some knee high foliage on the ground and thicker stuff in the background. Camera was set at ten yards.

Same area (outskirts of swamp) at twenty yards. Next G1 Vista picture blurred badly, and is omitted from this group. Also, the sun went behind clouds for the flannel and blaze orange shots, so they are pretty dark.


In this pic I'm on an overgrown 4-wheeler trailer through the thick brush area. Camera at twenty yards.

Heavy brush area at twenty yard.


Here is the pine area, camera at 10 yards. Due to the proximity of the trees the pine are full up top where the sun is, but bereft of any needles/foliage from ground level up to about twenty feet.


Same pine area, camera at twenty yards.


Here are a few of the full size ones that I thought blended in well. I wanted to add these so you get an idea how the pictures looked at better quality/resolution.
Next G1 Vista - heavy Brush at twenty yards


Real Tree AP heavy brush at ten yards


Predator Deception heavy brush at ten yards


Predator Deception pine at twenty yards


My Observations
Clearly, flannel and blaze orange do not provide any degree of camouflage or silhouette break-up. Granted, they aren't supposed to so you can't really hold it against these patterns/colors. What surprised me was how poorly flectarn performed. It quickly became a dark blob even at ten yards. Perhaps if you were wearing it in a dense jungle with a thick tree canopy to blot out the sun it may perform better, but otherwise flectarn is about as useful as a camouflage hunting pattern as the flannel shirt.

The Next G1 Vista pattern is where we start to see some measure of camouflage working. This pattern is a pseudo mimicry pattern (like MossyOak), but it has a fairly significant amount of "open space" to it. The Next G1 Vista appears to perform slightly better in the black & white photos than in the color photos. It may not be as apparent in these pictures (because they are kinda small), but in my full size pics the Next G1 Vista does blend in pretty well in the color photos unless the back drop is heavy green foliage. For me, this is irrelevant because the Next G1 Vista item I have is my insulated winter hunting parka, which means firearm season, which means I'm wearing my blaze orange vest over it.

The Russell brand RealTree AP is next up, and I think it does a decent job of providing some degree of camouflage and silhouette break-up. One thing that is interesting about the RealTree AP is that looking at my original pics (which have far greater detail) it performs very well in the black and white photos, yet not so well in color.

Lastly is the Predator Deception. This pattern performed the best of them all, excelling at breaking apart my silhouette. They do make a version with more green in it, but I mostly hunt in the fall so this set has more browns than greens (and I think it will blend in just that much better in mid September and later). But that is really irrelevant if you are hunting color blind pray, such as deer. In which case, the Deception would work just as well as the versions with green in them. Looking at the full-size photos what you can clearly see is that the Predator Deception pattern outperformed all others in all three environments.

Disclaimer - I don't work for any one of the companies, retailers, etc. who sell camo hunting attire. So I in no way will profit from you reading my post and deciding to buy what I endorse.

I have been hunting since I was 10 years old back on the farm and from what I can tell you is that animals are color blind. I am like you and have hunted with and without camo on different occasions and have gotten game wearing it and without it. I have stalked some great Kansas whitetail deer wearing blue jeans and a blaze orange vest. As long as I stalked with trees/cover behind me I never once spooked a deer because I was not wearing camo. If anything they just stared at me longer and gave me more of a chance to take a shot. The only camo I still own is for duck hunting because they have pretty good eyesight and will spot you in a fly-by.  

Now if you walk out across an open field in the middle of the day without camo I can see where your prey might see your sillouette mor easlily. I typically hunt deer from a stand or blind so I do not wear any camo because I am out of their general line of sight. I think camo has just become a hunting/social norm and is a huge industry. So all in all it is really up to you and your hunting style in my opinion. To prove my point I can attach some pics of the B&C 180+ deer I have taken over the years with me wearing blue jeans and an orange vest and hat.

Stating that you took XYZ animal wearing a pink polka dot outfit as a reason that camo is useless is really a moot point if it was done with a rifle from a concealed blind at 100 yards. Heck, it's even a moot point if it was done at 20 yards from concealment. The greatest factors in your success (or lack thereof) we can probably agree are whether you are upwind or downwind, and how much motion (and probably noise) you make. But if camo is worthless then why has nature endowed some of the greatest natural predators (tigers, leopard, etc) with it? Because when you are closing in on your prey and it looks right at you and you freeze, that camo may mean the difference between your game spooking and running off, or returning to grazing oblivious to your presence.

Yes, camo does help you blend into your background and one could argue as to whether camo is worth it or not until they are blue in the face. The point I am trying to make is that camoflage is not necessary if you are hunting from a blind or in a treestand. If you are out of sight already then wearing the camo is pointless. Camo is also pointless when you are shooting at your prey of choice with a rifle at distance.

I don't go trudging through the woods like king kong looking for my lady friend. When I bow hunt,  I stalk in looking where l step and use trees and bushes as my concealment as I go down the trails. Always stop, look and listen every few meters to spot your game. I pay attention to wind direction and follow the game trails to find my deer I scouted out before hunting season.

As is digress, I disagree with camoflage unless you are trying to get up close and personal. Nature did evolve animals to have natural camoflage to hide their location, mimic something else and allow them to close in on their kill. We as humans have tools at hand to help ensure we can take down our game. We are not cavemen who have to sneak up on something and kill it with out bare hands.

Not a jab at you but you are over-thinking the whole camouflage thing.  I've killed too many animals from the ground, at close range, wearing blaze orange or jeans to think one camo pattern makes much of a difference over another.  I've had turkeys wander inside 10 yards and check out the orange stuff in the woods during deer season.  Animals are scared by movement not color.

Having said that I think you are doing the right thing buying the cheapest stuff on sale and ignoring the pattern.  

One caveat, whites work very well in the snow.  Its the only "camo pattern" I have any faith in.

Camo doesn't mean jack shit in deer hunting.

In 30+ years of deer hunting I've worn camo exactly 1 time (I was helping as a guide- the camo was for show), and never had trouble killing whatever I was looking for.  Scent/noise control and being able to be still are far more important.

My hunting gear is jeans, a comfortable shirt/jacket, and a rifle.

The only time I'd really think about it is if I was bowhunting for turkey (which I've never done, BTW- I've only ever used a rifle).

All I know for sure is that turkeys see color.
Deer not so much.  I know this too - when my friend walks to my
stand at a predetermined time and I KNOW where to look, I cant see
him till he gets really close (bow season).  Honestly, I wear orange gloves, a hat and
a 3/4 vest so other hunters see me.  Orange things moving in the woods are
very easy to see - thats why I like gloves especially.  All of my friends that catch sight of
me in the woods are due to this - not the hat or vest, but swinging hands.

I have shot deer wearing only my tidy whities and a t shirt.......

The only variable not tested is your prey in response to clothing patterns...

The way I see it, if it provides an advantage, small or not, take it. Don't go broke or be uncomfortable while doing it. Just make sure what you use fits the hunting scenario.

I always enjoy the pictures in these threads to see what other people have compared in their neck of the woods.   I took some photos last early November in Eastern Iowa a few miles from the Mississippi river.  Snow hadn't fallen yet and I was curious what camo worked best in the back woods with all the leaves gone and in sunlight just partially hidden.  These were taken at about 20 yards away.  Here are some results of mine:

First up, good old M-65 Field Jacket in Woodland:


Than some German Flecktarn:


Seclusion 3D Open Country:


Realtree cheapo from Wal-Mart:


Cabelas Outfitter High Plains


Columbia Wool Brown Camo


Wool Loden (Green)


Canvas Duck (no name, but not Carhartt)


Black Flannel:


Red Flannel:


Columbia Wool Snow Camo (the snow was comming soon)

Double post

I should add you can see the white coat-hanger as a dead giveaway in most of these photos.

Personally, I thought the Cheapo Walmart Realtree did the best.  Followed by Muliticam than the Columbia Wool.

Found my Multicam pics.

Plaid patterns like ones you see on flannel shirts were originally developed as camouflage back in 1800's in Scotland.

I work in a office everyday so when I go hunting I like to wear camo clothing... I like the change.
Also, I find that a lot of "high performance" clothing for hot weather and cold weather are available in hunting section at much lower price than at sporting or regular men's section.
Living and hunting in Florida I need hot weather clothes for hunting most of the time and I found them in the hunting section... with camo pattern.
Same with rain gear and warm jacket.

Multicam works as shown above.

First off, thanks op for taking the time to do those comparisons, very well done. As far as what camo you have to work with it seems you did well buying the predator. I recently bought some multicam and will use it this year.  It seems that it's actually the lighter colors break up an outline more than high def branches all over.

I agree some lighter colors are necessary for breakup.  Multicam does this well.  The new Cabelas Zones camo does this well too.

Deer see red/ green colorblind and are extra sensitive closer to the low end of the spectrum meaning near UV.