Hunter Orange

Hello, This is my first post. I have been a regular visitor to the site for quite some time. My uncle, 60+ diabetic, overweight was recently in a situation. He had gone out to check cattle in his pickup and went missing in single digit low weather. No problem in a warm pickup but things went south as he dropped one wheel into a ditch. Luckily he had just fueled so was able to keep warm through the night. The search went through the night and the next day a rescuer saw a glimpse of hunter orange on the horizon. Nebraska state law requires 400 square inches of hunter orange on their head, back and chest AT ALL TIMES during hunting season and my uncle still had his cheap vest in his pickup so he tied it to the antennae. I now have .50 vests in all my vehicles.

we see alot of high-tech stuff on this site..this is a good
example of using you head--make a flag--and an low-tech
everyday item--hunters vest--hat..to make a good ending
to what could have been a lost cause..and welcome Driver!!!

There is also blaze orange duct tape (& other flourescent colors) as well as non-stick tapes (used by surveyors/contractors.) They can be used to brighten up clothes, make a distress flag or use as a trail markers. If you have a permanent marker like a Sharpie, you can add messages to your markers too.

Tim

A good reminder that the gear to save your life dosen't have to cost a lot. Welcome to the forum XDriver. Don't pay any atention to any one when the start to bark about one of your posts no ones been bit yet, except Blast.

Turkey season starts here in April, but people are out hunting all year long, for such things as raccoon, coyote, opossom, and swamp hog, so it may be a good idea to keep hunter orange on all year long.

If I ever encountered some hunter who made that sort of statement, I would have a long and painful discussion with him about game recognition and what a telescopic sight on a rifle is for (aiming the rifle at something you wish to shoot, not spotting and identification).

If I see a hunter pointing a gun at me, I will take great offense and return the favor, usually after taking cover. You do not use the sights of a firearm to spot game, and anyone who does is not only unethical, but also breaking the law should they end up pointing that muzzle at a person without cause. They would have no joy if they pointed a firearm at a game warden/LEO in the field.

I'm a big proponent of carrying bright orange 55 gallon bags as multi-use items - preferably at least two of them.

They can provide shelter, provide a dry place to sit on the ground, keep gear dry, act as LARGE signal flags or trailer marker strips (when edges are cut off - can be written on with a Sharpie), carry water (if not abused), and even hold trash.

They are great multi-purpose survival items.

I bought mine from http://www.spectrumbagsonline.com

Welcome aboard XDriver!!

welcome X-driver. A good story with a happy ending. Its often the low tech stuff that makes a difference. Often I'd rather have a liter of water than a gps.
tro

XDriver,

Welcome to the fire! Nice thinking by your uncle, it's suprising how many people DON'T come up with such solutions (well, it should be suprising).

Here in Houston the local Walmarts have their cheap vinyl hunter's safety vests on clearance. I prefer keeping a brightly colored, highly reflective safety vest in our vehicles. If I'm changing a tire or rendering aid by the road I want to be SEEN.

-Blast

Ditto the above; I've got a vest and beanie in my car for similar situations. Usually out hiking I'll wear red or blue... though blue can be tough to tell in some poor-light situations. Maybe I'll upgrade to different color UnderArmour for that reason.

Izzy, did that genius think he'd HIT you at a mile away? Few people on the planet could make that shot. (granted, unaimed would hurt just as bad!)

Good going thinking of the orange vest as a flag. Survival is often a matter of using what you have in unusual ways. Making the most of what you have on hand.

Within the various groups concerned with survival there is a subset of those who take a more militarized approach. For them everything has to be 'tactical', subdued or camouflaged in some way. The preferred mode is to not be seen.

There are a few situations where being less visually obvious might be an advantage. Given the numbers of recreational campers who flood into the woods it is always better if their gear is drab. It doesn't take many orange and bright blue tents on a mountainside to convert a beautiful vista into visual pollution.

But sometimes you want to be seen. You don't want to be mistaken for a deer during hunting season and if you need to be found, and/or rescued being easily spotted is going to help.

The old military parkas had a OD green side and a Naval Distress Orange, day-glow orange, reverse. Sometimes you want to blend and sometimes you don't.

A standard hi-visibility vest could come in handy if you have to evacuate by walking down a road. Getting run over by a exhausted or inattentive driver that doesn't see you until too late isn't going to help you any. A bright vest might make the difference between escape or being a casualty.

Those day-glow vest are pretty light and they fold up well. Choosing you clothing, other gear with an eye toward when you do and don't want to stand out will help.

You might also consider one or two of these:
http://www.bestglide.com/VS17_Signal_Panel_Marker.html

At 24" by 70" it would serve as an emergency ground cloth or sun shelter. Two connected would make a decent shelter and one that would be both durable and easy to spot.

That might be a bit bulky for smaller kits where size and weight are at a premium. Smaller kits can sometimes benefit from inclusion of some surveyor's flagging tape:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagging_(tape)

It comes in a wide variety of colors and widths from 1" to 6". The most common rolls are 1" wide and better than 500' long wound on a cardboard core is about the size of a hockey puck. Shorter lengths can be wound up without the core and can give you a hundred feet or more in a compact and light bundle.

These can be used to mark trails, your travel route or longer pieces tied to or between anything handy to make a highly visible signal that moves in the wind.

Not a bad idea, but to be truly effective at being a signal to others, it's got to be bigger. A 1-inch x 10-foot banner is essentially useless at any appreciable distance.

I read once that the human eye can detect about 1-inch difference in color at 100 yards.

So, if you have surveryor's tape in the 1" size, i'd suggest some sort of method for making it of a larger size - be it tape, weaving, or melting pieces together.

I think a vest is more than I might want. I carry a hunter orange bandana (fairly heavy cloth, not thin cotton). The darn thing is so bright that it hurts my eyes to look at it. It remains folded up in the bottom of my pack until I need it to function as a signal. (or bandage)
I also often carry a neck gaiter that has an inner orange side.

I'm a big fan of neck insulation in addition to watch cap. I actually sleep year 'round with a simple fleece neck gaiter and I sleep much better because of it.

I prefer to travel subdued but when visibility matters it's good to have options.

Welcome Newguy. Bright orange always seems to work...

"...If I'm changing a tire or rendering aid by the road I want to be SEEN..."

Me too. So I have an old military orange flight suit that I got in the '60's (and still fits) that I carry just for tire changing, etc. Keeps me clean, and VISIBLE...

Hi All,

There is an easy way to make standard 1" flagging tape more visable.

I used to work summers as a Fire Ranger in Northern Ontario and often during mop-up operations we would have to expose burning piles of buried debris and then call in a helicopter to bucket water on to these hotspots. It was difficult to exactly direct the pilot where to drop the water so we came up with a marker system using bright orange 1" wide flagging tape. You need to cut about a 2" dia. 8' tall hardwood sapling, remove the leaves but not the main forking branches in the top. Tie many 16" lenghts of flagging tape to the bare upper branches, the sapling ends up looking like a giant pom-pom on the end of a stick. By radio the helicopter would be directed to the drop-site, a crewmember would wave the orange flagged tree over the hotspot and then drop it directly on the site. The helicopter pilot could easily see the movememt and broad, bright colour of the signal and our percentage of direct bucket hits went way up (therefore us crewmembers did not have to digout smudges as much).

I demonstrate this method when teaching signaling to the local kids in our youth group; explaining the advantages of large, moving, contrasting, bright colour.

When marking locations in dense bush or at long distances you need a bigger, higher signal than just a small piece of flagging tape. Find a hardwood tree about 20 feet tall and bend the top to the ground, tie a piece of flagging tape to it (or a couple of long pieces) and then let the tree spring back upward, pulling a long piece of tape with it. The movement of the long strip in the wind really catches your attention.

This letting the tree spring-up method works very well at night with a luminous snap-light to mark a landing location (boat or helicopter) and is how I locate my downed big-game when I return to them with help for extraction (e.g. extra people or ATV).

I also keep a road safety vest in the repair kit of my vehicles, be sure it is one of the type with the reflective stripes as they are very visible at night. Many years ago the son of a co-worker of my father was killed while changing a tire in Southern Ontario; he was hit by a passing car, thrown off an overpass and onto the busy highway below.

The use of ultra-violet dye in the creation of bright colours is contraversial amoung hunters, recent testing has found that some wildlife can detect ultra-violet as a seperate colour (like the glow from a black light at a disco), while hunams do not see it at all. There are also U/V brighteners in many laundry detergents. It is possible to have two matching hunter orange garments, one which "glows in the dark with U/V light" the other which does not. An excellent article on U/V light and wildlife can be found here http://www.atsko.com/articles/animal-vision-and-smell/how-game-animals-see-smell.html along with lots of other interesting information.

Welcome to the ETS Forum new guy!

Mike