Huntech Bushland Habitat Camouflage™

Producing a New Zealand bush camouflage pattern has been foremost in our minds for sometime. Commonly used American forest patterns tend to be way too dark. They are designed mainly for bowhunters who hunt from high tree stands, in forests dominated by large, dark deciduous hardwood trees, with dark heavy canopies. Because it is only possible to hunt during the autumn in the USA there is very little green foliage in the patterns.

New Zealand forests are dominated by small leaf shrubs, and small trees interspersed by larger trees, with small leaves, creating light open canopies. Our higher rainfall and milder climate makes our forests have a much more lush foliage dominated by evergreens. The effect is a much greener environment, with hundreds of shades of green. Also a lot of hunting country is made up of ridge systems with gullies full of lush growth while the ridge tops tend to be more open and sparsely populated by shrubs.

In designing the Habitat Camouflage System™, Bushland™ was the most demanding because of the large variety of forest types which are hunted in New Zealand. Studying hundreds of photos of bush from all over the country we began to formulate a pattern which will work in most places. We identified some plant foliage which are found in most hunting areas as our foreground elements, and the same with the intermediate ground. These are painted by our graphic artist and placed within the overall repeat design. For the Bushland pattern we have experimented with several different backgrounds, because the background has the greatest overall effect on the final result. We printed several samples with different backgrounds and then took them out in the field to access there overall effectiveness. Once we decided which background had the greatest merit we then printed several samples using the chosen background at different colour temperatures. By that we mean from overall colder blue tones to warmer yellows and reds, which changes the overall result of the camouflage quite dramatically.

Finally we had a Bushland Habitat™ Camouflage pattern with great depth, detail and clarity.