Topic: The Best Camo for Turkey Hunting of 2023, Tested and Reviewed (Read 59 times)
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Topic: The Best Camo for Turkey Hunting of 2023, Tested and Reviewed (Read 59 times)
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After everything turns green in the woods and fields, you want camo that has enough green to help you blend. If you’re too green you’ll stand out. You need a good co*bo of green and brown to blend with vegetation and shadows, and Realtree Edge has a decent amount of both to make sure you don’t stand out when turkeys are in range. The depth on this pattern is effective for breaking up your outline, but it could use more green, especially if you hunt in places where the greenup happens early.
This Nomad Leafy ¼ Zip is the best of both worlds. It mixes vivid natural colors in a convenient quarter-zip that you can throw over a t-shirt and go. The leafy pattern offers great realism, especially when the wind’s blowing, and the quarter-zip provides exceptional ventilation for high spring temps or run-n-gun hunting. You can wear it over a t-shirt or as is. It also makes a great just-in-case shirt for quick unexpected hunts. I keep a leafy suit, boots, handful of ammo, and a slate call in my truck, just in case I get a quick hunt opportunity. You can even add Nomad’s leafy pants for a full leafy suit option for maximum blending.
Every time I hunt Texas or Oklahoma, I try to pack camo that isn’t dark so I can blend into the lighter, desert backgrounds. The King’s Camo Desert Shadow replicates the mesquite and scrub quite well, and the pattern has a great mix of light and dark areas, so it doesn’t stand out or blob up. The long-sleeve shirt is a quick-dry, 100% polyester birds-eye mesh fabric that wicks sweat, so you can wear it in spring for turkeys, summer for axis or hogs, and early fall for deer.
Turkey hunting in the snow? You betcha. In northern states with early turkey openers (like my home state of Minnesota), it’s not unco*mon to have a few inches of snow during the first week of the season. Plus, there are plenty of fall and winter turkey seasons around the country that get snowy. If you wear your typical bright green turkey camo in the flat-gray, snow-covered woods, gobblers will pick you out well before they get into shotgun range. TrueTimber’s Tundra pattern is a perfect option. With a little gray-brown texture over the white background, you’ll melt right into the tree you’re sitting against. —Alex Robinson
More and more folks are realizing that they don’t need to wear camo to kill game. I’d argue that the turkey woods are one of the few places that camo clothing, or at least some earth-toned clothing, is a real requirement to success. That’s why the Voormi Blowdown pattern is an ideal option. It has enough texture and vertical lines to break up your outline when you’re sitting against a tree, but it’s not your typical sticks and leaves camo pattern either. You can throw this on for casual scouting trips (or serious hunts), and then show up at your kid’s track meet without your shirt screaming “I’m a turkey hunter.” Because sometimes, I like to keep a low profile even after I’ve left the woods. —A.R.
When the woods are fully leafed out and radiate with the electric-green of late spring, this is the camo pattern you want to wear to tag your last gobbler of the season. You’ll notice it’s brighter and greener than any other pattern in our lineup. It blends perfectly with tall, new grass and young saplings that have burst with fresh leaves. The only downside is that this pattern is not ideal for earlier in the season. Because of this, it wouldn’t be my first choice for the camo pattern on my gun. But every turkey hunter should have a pair of pants and a hunting shirt in Mossy Oak Obsession. You’ll put them to good use in the late season. —A.R.
TrueTimber is a relatively new camo co*pany (when co*pared to the likes of Mossy Oak and Realtree) and it has beco*e popular in big outdoors stores like Cabela’s and Bass Pro. The Strata pattern has a similar color scheme to Bottomland, so it matches nicely with hardwood tree bark. It’s slightly darker, so not the perfect choice for an electric green woods. It has a modern, textured pattern (not just sticks and leaves). The best thing about Strata is that it’s printed on a wide variety of clothing that can be had at affordable prices. If you’re a turkey hunter on a budget and just need a simple camo shirt to wear under your vest, this is a great option. —Alex Robinson
In 2017, Sitka designed its Optifade Subalpine pattern specifically for early season elk and mule deer archery hunters. The green and tan digi-camo works wonderfully in the spring turkey woods, too. Sitka realized this quickly enough and started introducing turkey specific items under its Equinox series.
You’ll find serious turkey hunters wearing Sitka gear in the Deep South all the way out to the mountains of the West. One of the main reasons for this is because Sitka makes a ton of high-performance (and spendy) gear. Turkey hunters who are looking for slimmer cuts, better materials, and more features in their clothing tend to go with Sitka. It certainly helps that the co*pany has a camo pattern that works well in a variety of turkey hunting habitats. —Alex Robinson
First Lite designed its Specter pattern for hardcore whitetail hunters, so its pattern is meant to blend with a fall canopy. That concept works pretty well in the early and mid-spring turkey woods, too.
