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Written by The DIY Hunter

Category: Outdoor

Published: 18 August 2010

Hits: 6173

As you may know from reading other journal entries or my Bio on the website I currently work for Browning. When it comes to camouflage, Browning uses Mossy Oak® camouflage patterns. And even though there are many other excellent brands of camo and various patterns I have tried to stay loyal to the brand I love and the camo Browning produces on its clothing and other products. With that said the camo patterns I use are various patterns of Mossy Oak brand of camouflage.

For many years my only camouflage option was various versions of darker and darker Break-Up® camo. Can you tell I'm not a fan of New Break-Up? However in recent years Mossy Oak has been producing other camo patterns that I have greatly enjoyed. :) Now I do think, New Break-Up is a good pattern if I am going to be in the dark pines the entire time hunting but if I step out into the sagebrush or quaking aspens I stick out like a sore thumb. For the most part, I think that New Break-Up in many terrains makes you look like a black blob and does very little to break up your outline.

My favorite western camo pattern right now (Fall of 2011) is Treestand. The large areas of light and dark creates great contrast that works very well in many different terrains in breaking up your outline. Treestand camo pattern is excellent in the quaking aspens, sagebrush and granite boulder/rocks of the west. The Treestand camo pattern allows me to go from quaking aspens to sagebrush to a boulder field and into pines and I don't look like a dark or light-colored blob. Because this camo pattern has such large areas of light colors and large areas of dark colors it gives you great versatility in breaking up my outline in numerous different settings.

With the exception of the Treestand pattern all of the different patterns work really good as long as you are in the matching color of vegetation. As soon as you step into different terrain and vegetation often you appear as a large blob of solid color that doesn't match the location. Treestand, in my opinion, does the best job of helping you blend in the largest variety of locations.

My second favorite camo pattern is Duck Blind. This camo is similar to the Brush pattern in color but offers better contrast with dark areas that help break up your outline. Duck Blind is great for areas where the vegetation is yellow and brown.

Eastern Oklahoma where I hunt Whitetail deer from time to time is a perfect area for Duck Blind or Brush as much of the vegetation is very yellow and brown during the late archery season and the rifle season in November/December.

I plan on updating this article periodically as I go hunting in different locations. I will continue to post different photos as I can of camo patterns in different locations and vegetation/terrains.

Dec. 2010: I paid close attention to camo patterns on my recent hunting adventure in Eastern Oklahoma. I had a lot of Break-Up Infinity along for the trip. Infinity looked really good when you were right on the ground in the leaves or against a tree. The fleece TreeStand camo clothing I had with me was a little too dark of reproduction of the camo pattern on this fleece material in my opinion and I question if it was more effective than Infinity camo even up in a tree stand. When it was warm enough I used my lightweight cotton Treestand camo shirt and pant with the camo pattern colored properly and it appeared to work well.

My favorite camo from the open fields to the timbered creek bottoms of Oklahoma is Duck Blind. Duck Blind blended very nicely in the greatest number of areas I hunted while on the ground... now once I was in a tree I prefer a light-colored version of TreeStand, but if I was on the ground Duck Blind or Brush would be my favorites.

After returning home from Oklahoma I went looking for some lighter colored Mossy Oak TreeStand in some fleece. I really really like MOTS(Mossy Oak TreeStand) camo for hunting out west as long as it is printed really light on the clothing material. I found that the Genesis Fleece and 4x Microfleece that Browning produced are light just like my Browning Wasatch cotton shirts and pants. The only problem is that Browning discontinued both the 4x Microfleece in MOTS and the Genesis Fleece in MOTS. With some checking around I found some Genesis Fleece in MOTS at Sierra Trading Post. It was a little hard for me to swallow being a Browning employee and buying a Browning product from a retailer but, Sierra's price for the Genesis Fleece was actually not all that bad. Now as an employee I still could have bought the product cheaper if I had been paying attention to what Browning had closed out last year. Anyway in the process, I found that Sierra Trading Post buys a lot of various Browning products.

January 2012: Browning is now offering Realtree camo patterns. Yeah! I look forward to getting some Realtree AP and Realtree Max-1 camo clothing. They both look to be excellent camouflage patterns for the areas I like to hunt. If I could just convince the powers that be at Browning to offer some King's Camo, Hmm...

August 2012: I've been using Realtree camo for the first time since I started working at Browning back in 2000. I've been using Max-1 camo on my 2012 Archery Hunting for Elk in the Utah Wasatch Limited Entry Unit. I'm liking the camo a lot. I'm now going back and forth between Max-1, Treestand, Duckblind and Brush for my western big game hunting.