Does Plaid Work as Well as Camo?

Why do hunters in nearly every vintage hero shot wear plaid? It worked. Anything a predator wears (born with or bought) needs to break up its silhouette. Tiger stripes do that. Plaid does that. Camo does that.

“But I just bought this darling new camo ensemble that will make me invisible to ungulates, and I’ll be the envy of all my friends,” said at least one person reading this. Don’t sweat it. You can still rock the camo. But before you skip a mortgage payment on the latest pattern, you need to understand the way ungulates see you. Then you can decide if grandaddy’s plaid coat or the latest camo is for you. 

If your camo doesn't make you smile, imagine how much happiness plaid can bring. 

Ungulate Eyeballs

Since deer, elk, moose, and other ungulates are on the menu for us predators, they have evolved to see, hear, smell, and sense predators. Deer and elk trust nothing more than their keen sense of smell. One whiff of us, and you know how the story ends. Play to win, play the wind. 

Sight is a similar story, yet we might be able to get away with slightly more in terms of screwing up. First, understand deer vision is based on movement. Deer can see an astounding 300-degrees. We can see 120. Deer, though, have about 20/40 visual acuity. This helps explain why deer might bust you walking in the open and actually walk toward you once you pretend to be a tree. They’re trying to get a better look and get your wind. If you move again, they bolt. 

Unless colorblind, humans get to see the rainbow—red, yellow, blue as well as black, white, and shades of gray. Ungulates see yellow, black, white, shades of gray and blue. Holy smokes do they see blue! They see the blue end of the spectrum 1000-times brighter than humans, which means if you wash anything—camo, plaid or otherwise—in normal detergent that contains ultra-violet (UV) brighteners, then you’re going to glow like the sun. Plus, UV light intensifies in the early morning and at dusk, so there’s that. 

How Plaid Works 

In the days before we had a camo pattern for every ecotype, hunters somehow managed to kill game. They wore red buffalo plaid Mackinaw coats. These jackets were quiet and made from wool, which made them incredibly warm, dense and water-repellent. Red, it turns out, is an ideal color for hunting. To deer, red looks green. The same goes for orange, which is why a blaze orange requirement shouldn’t cost you a wall-hanger. 

Here’s the key. You don’t want to look like a solid blob of something in the field. Think of a tree. Its outline is broken up with branches and other trees. When you stand in front of it with a solid orange vest or coat, you’re approaching blob status, which looks out of place. Instead, the broken, criss-crossing lines on plaid break up the blob’s outline. 

“Complicated plaid patterns that have both very large check elements and very small ones have a lot in common with modern digital camo,” says Dr. Jay Nietz, a professor of ophthalmology and a color vision researcher at the University of Washington. He works with companies like Sitka Gear to create specialized digital camo patterns based on vegetation and terrain. 

As he explains it, digital camo combines two main elements: a macro and micro pattern. A macro pattern of large fragmented shapes breaks up the symmetry of the human body similar to the way a tiger’s stripes break up the shape of its body as it stalks prey. The micro-pattern of small fragmented shapes plays off the way ungulates perceive color and space. This helps a hunter fade into the background the way a leopard’s spots help it avoid detection while poised to ambush, he says. 

Original Buffalo Plaid

Trebark Camo

Sitka Subalpine Camo

“In the plaid, the large checks could represent the macro pattern and the small ones represent the micro pattern,” says Dr. Nietz. “It could be that the plaids were either the first digital camo patterns or a forerunner to them.”

There is plenty of science to back modern-day camo patterns, which is based on what ungulates see. There is plenty of marketing, too. In the end, though, nothing is going to help you fill the freezer more than experience and using your brain. Play the wind. Move little. Plaid or camo, it’s up to you. 

To see vintage camo in action, check out our latest Vintage Hunting Gallery.

PJ DelHomme is a writer for Crazy Canyon Media in Missoula, Montana. He regularly contributes content to the Boone and Crockett Club as well as national and regional publications.