The Subtleties of Blaze Orange
One of my favorite yearly rituals is going to University of Iowa football games. Usually the team plays pretty well, and the stadium is packed with the Hawkeye faithful decked out in their cold weather gear. Without fail, there are always 5-10 fans wearing their blaze orange hunting gear. The ease of singling out one blaze orange hat that’s hundreds of yards away, bobbing within the sea of black and gold serves as an interesting object lesson on the incredible effectiveness of blaze orange. But this object lesson also brings up two important considerations: 1. If I follow the state guidelines for wearing blaze orange I will be plenty visible to other hunters in my area. 2: If I am so easy to spot in my blaze orange uniform, I wonder how well deer can see me?
A while back I wrote an article for an outdoor magazine on effective tactics for late season gun hunters. One of the things I mentioned in the article was how to camouflage your blaze orange from the deer. I erroneously suggested that hunters should choose blaze orange that has a camouflage pattern. Turns out this is illegal in many states. Most states require a majority of your body to be covered in solid blaze orange during gun seasons.
The good news is, thanks to cellular analysis of deer eyes, biologists have determined that deer do not see blaze orange the same way humans do.* Most likely the flamboyant duds appear to them as just a mass of solid color that is not significantly distinguishable from the other colors their eyes and brains can detect (worth noting- although deer vision is best suited for watching The Andy Griffith Show, they can detect blue color more than most other colors- so avoid hunting in blue jeans).
The bad news is, a giant human shaped blob of white color could be as alarming to a deer as walking into the YMCA locker room at the wrong moment would be to one of us. Taking this into consideration, I recommend gun hunters wear a blaze orange vest with a totally different colored layer under it, such as a camo pattern or natural color that will blend in with the other shades of color the deer are used to seeing. Outfitting yourself with some pants that don’t match your coat, or have a camo pattern would be a safe bet as well. The same goes for gloves, neck gaiters, face masks, boots and anything else you may be wearing in in the tree stand.
Blaze orange saves lives, and if you take a few extra minutes of planning your hi-vis hunting ensemble, its life saving magic won’t also benefit the deer.
*Reference
Murphy, B. (2018, March 7). The Hunter's Guide to Deer Vision: QDMA. Retrieved April 17, 2020, from https://www.qdma.com/hunters-guide-deer-vision/