I have always been big on camo; not that I would testify it has a lot to do with filling my game bag
. Blaze orange is not required here in Arizona. Here it is relatively wide-open. Even in the trees (it's not all desert, gang) the underbrush is absolutely nothing compared to back East. Bottomline, I 've never felt I was taking a big risk wearing camo.
On the other hand, I do lot of hunting on the border. I do not want to take this topic of track, but the border is, shall we say, interesting? If I'm walking about in the desert, pulling up on a ridge to glass, or whatever, I'm pretty obvious to other hunters. But sometimes, I reserve the right to hunker down behind a bush and remain
deliberately unseen to those who are
not hunting, since it might be more conducive to my health not to be seen (Coyotes, drug smugglers, banditos, whatever).
But in the last year I've gotten a bird dog, and have been training up for bird hunting. While I haven't actually gone bird hunting yet, the training and AKC hunt tests have given me a different perspective on blaze orange. For bird hunting, in which the quarry is lying still and trying to avoid you, regardless of whether he knows you are there or not, orange makes sense. Unlike deer hunting, all your buddies are within 30 feet or so, there's dogs running around and jumping into view, and you are actively swinging a gun across your field of view tracking something at close range. I think that flash of orange that enters your peripheral vision at the last moment as you swing that shotgun could mean the difference between pulling a Dick Cheney or not. So in the last year, I have added a modest amount of blaze orange to my hunting wardrobe.
Hope that all makes sense.