Born Hunting editor Jace Bauserman spent a week testing Sitka’s just-launched Optifade Cover camo pattern this past spring. Here’s what you need to know.
by Jace Bauserman
It’s time for big game, and turkeys aren’t on most hunters’ minds. Bear with me. This article isn’t about turkeys. Well, it may be a little. I’m a turkey junkie and can’t help myself. This article is mainly about Sitka’s all-new, released today, camo pattern: Optifade Cover.
I suck at keeping secrets, and keeping Sitka’s all-new bombshell pattern hush-hush for the past five months has been challenging.
Gun Powder’s Justin Brouillard approached me about possibly testing Optifade Cover this past February. The plan was to tote Sitka’s Equinox Guard Hoody, Equinox Guard Pant, and Turkey Tool Belt to Vermont and New York and test it in the mix of maple, ash, oak, beech, and white pine forests. The pattern would also see a mixture of open green pastures, harvested grain fields, and other varied landscapes.
Why Vermont and New York?
In May, you won’t find greener, more gorgeous turkey landscapes than Northern Vermont and Eastern New York. In this part of the world, green comes in a spectrum of shades, from the deep, lush emerald of a dense forest to the bright lime of freshly sprouted grasses and clovers. Then, there are areas of rich olive green with earthly undertones that blend warmth and subtle complexity, like sunlit moss on an ancient moss stone wall. Walls like these separated numerous Vermont properties we hunted.
Cover was created to address the lack of concealment options for greener seasons. Whitetails and turkeys are North America’s favorite game animals. Their adaptability is second to none, so they are huntable in almost every U.S. state. Turkey seasons occur during the spring and early fall when green abounds, and whitetail seasons run from as early as mid-August in some locales through late February in others.
Both game species detect movement four times faster than humans, and turkeys have 300-degree-plus vision. Concealment is key! Cover excels in densely vegetated and leafed tree canopy environments.
Why Turkey?
We could have tested this pattern anywhere. We could have traveled to Africa, taken it for Texas exotics, or tested it on early-season pronghorn. Turkeys were our pick because of their next-level eyesight and keen senses. The subspecies of choice was the Eastern, arguably one of the most challenging subspecies to harvest.
Also, after speaking with Sitka’s design team members, it was evident the pattern was specifically crafted to disrupt the vision of deer and turkey. Research shows turkeys and ungulates see UV wavelengths remarkably well. Sitka worked alongside animal vision experts on the structure of game species’ eyes and color perception based on photoreceptors and cone distribution. With excellent, factual intel, multiple rounds of UV spectrometer testing were conducted to prove the coloration used in Optifade Cover keeps the hunter invisible.
What better species to test the invisibility factor of the all-new Cover than the wild turkey?
The Garments
Of course, Sitka offers multiple clothing options cloaked in Cover, and I recommend visiting the website if you plan to start building your arsenal.
While our goal was to test the pattern rather than the garments’ performance, I want to touch on the garments tested briefly.
Equinox Guard Hoody & Equinox Guard Pant
If you have yet to hunt turkey and deer with Sitka’s Equinox apparel, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Why?
Naturally, the garments are ultra-comfortable. Few do comfort and overall product performance like Sitka. Yes, Equinox items provide full coverage while remaining breathable. Oh, and they reduce the human stink. The biggest reason to go the Equinox Guard route though, especially for turkey and whitetail goers, is that all garments are pre-treated with Insect Shield, which heavily reduces bites from mosquitos, ticks, ants, biting flies, etc. Ticks carry crazy diseases, and more tick-borne diseases appear each year.
I despise DEET. It stinks, and it’s not good for you. I also hate pre-treating my hunting clothes with permethrin. However, I’m not too fond of mosquitos and ticks. Deet can work, and I’ve had excellent luck with permethrin. Still, both stink, and both aren’t good for you.
The good news is that I don’t use DEET or permethrin anymore. I have worn Equinox Guard apparel from the swamps of Florida to New York to Vermont to Texas, and if you follow the manufacturer’s instructions and purchase the necessary Equinox gear, your tick encounters will be few and far between.
Turkey Tool Belt
I’m not a turkey vest guy. I don’t take everything and the kitchen sink to the turkey woods. I aim to keep bulk down, especially on my torso, and keep things light and maneuverable. My preferred turkey hunting method when I have a shotgun is run-and-gun, and the Turkey Took Belt heeds the strike-em’ and go-get-em’ call.
The molded front call pocket easily stows a pair of pot calls, four strikers, and as many diaphragm calls as you want to carry. I also love the removable seat pad, and the hip pockets are ideal for a headlamp, camo face paint, extra shells, etc. The Turkey Took Belt also has a sizeable water bottle compartment that easily holds a 32-ounce Nalgene.
All of the gear performed perfectly, which is not at all surprising.
The Pattern
I saved the best for last—the hunt.
I did have two hens and three jakes a stone’s throw from me while hunting deep inside a heavy-canopy forest, which proved the pattern’s effectiveness. The green inside the forest was deep and dark, and the pattern did its job. However, I feel that most patterns will perform well in that environment.
The real test came when my buddy, Hunter Navari, and I glassed up a strutter working across a lush, vibrant pasture. We used a reaping-style decoy, but a hen popped over a slight rise as we were slipping close. Thinking the strutter was alone, we were caught off guard. I was in front, and Hunter was behind me. Slowly, I sank into the two-inch tall grass. The hen stared for two minutes, resumed feeding, and walked back over the hill. As for the gobbler, well, he charged the decoy Hunter was holding while I lay next to him in the pasture grass. The pattern performed brilliantly.
In New York, I watched Justin’s brother, Cody, disappear into a small patch of brush deep in the timber. Seconds later, I heard the Browning’s boom followed by the flopping of turkey.
As for me, I killed a pair of birds in New York. Both were run-and-gun style. The first bird came in fast as I closed the distance with Justin calling behind me. All I had to hide in were some thorny bushes and calf-high grass. As the jake and tom emerged from the timber and walked briskly across the open field to the bottom of the hill, I went from an on-the-knees kneeling position to standing and put a load of TSS #9s into the tom’s cranium.
My next bird came after I whiffed on a deep-timber give-me opportunity. I got excited, and I missed it. I have zero problems admitting that. Cover, though, did its job once again. I wasn’t in a good hide. I was worried the lone tom would pick me off, so I shot early. Had I let the bird get closer, I would have made a killing shot. After testing the pattern for a week, I can confidently testify that he didn’t see me and I should have let him keep coming.
Minutes after missing that bird, we spied a tom with two hens at the bottom of an alfalfa field. This bird ignored our best hen talk, so once again, I went unconventional. I figured a spot-and-stalk turkey hunt in an open alfalfa field would be an excellent Cover pattern test. I shot that tom at 27 yards.
Final Thoughts
Sitka doesn’t add a new camo pattern every year. They only add a pattern when they feel there is a need for one. I agree that camo patterns that excel in green environments were once limited. They aren’t anymore. Sitka offers a full line of Cover-cloaked apparel, and I put my turkey stamp of approval on it and plan to give it a complete whitetail test very soon.
