Vision Question

[Roger45]

I had a very interesting conversation with my brother and came up with a question. Think long and hard on this. When you are *spotting* game, do you look for the odd shape and fill in the color, or do you look for the odd color and fill in the shape? The former is apparently more common, and the later somewhat rare. What do you guys think???

[hunt_ak]

I guess I would be part of the 'less common'. Definitely looking for outta the place dark (and sometimes light as in a blonde griz or somthing) spot. Looking for a shape, to me, would be fairly pointless as you aren't going to see a recognizable shape most of the time. Wether it be half of a hind quarter, an ear, half a palm sticking out of the brush, whatever. You dont know what kind of animal, how its standing, etc, you are looking at, so you cant be looking for a pre-determined shape in your mind.

[JOAT]

Yeah. After thinking about it for a minute. Exactly what Hunt said.

[akula682]

dont need to think long and hard, im looking for color first. Its the fastest and easiest way to find game.

[B-radford]

As stated before me, I try to pic out color first, then i go for shape. I use to see alot more game when I picked out shapes first, but you cant fill your freezer with moose shaped brush .

[Vince]

i use a combonation of both.. on a good day you can see color. over cast/gray light, at a mile moose blend in to well.. i look for the horizontal lines in a vertical world. things that dont belong. i look for shiny in the sun and dull in the gray, I look all year long, practice every day. I look before the season and know my area well. if it changes... i am the first to see it

[kingfisherktn]

I am usually looking for color, but in SE I typically have only black (bear) and tan/brown (blacktail) to deal with. It is fun though to watch the color change on the deer from a redish tan in August to dark brown/gray in October.

Now if those deer would keep their summer color into October my success rate would greatly improve.

[Marc Taylor]

Contrast with background always catches my eye, not necessarily shape or color.

Very good thread fodder!

Taylor

[TWB]

I'm all about color/contrast. For being color-blind I can spot a moose very well in thick areas.

[Roger45]

Next part of the question...for those of you that pick out color first, how often do you *fill in the shape* and realize you are wrong? For example, you see that odd brown shape and the next thing you think is that it is a bear , moose, deer, whatever and when you get closer, it is just that animal shaped tree? The thought is that if you pick color, your mind needs shape, therefore you may be *wrong* more often than those that go with shape first and then fill in the color.

Like I said in the original post, we had a great time discussing this topic

[hunt_ak]

Yeah, you may be wrong from time to time, but thats wast 'Borris' (yes, we named our spotter) our Swaro spotting scope is for. See a 'possible' and check it out with the big eye.

[JOAT]

I'd have to say that after finding a "color" of interest, while one might be looking for "shapes" during the process, the next thing to watch for is "movement".

A "color", with or without "shape", that doesn't move, is no longer interesting. In the mind of a predator, terrain is stationary, food moves.

[alaskanfishguides]

Depends

For moose hunting, on a spot and stalk, antlers is usually what I see first... the color or flash that is. I do remember a moose that the first thing I noticed were the trees that tapered the wrong way when looking through the brush under the spruce boughs. Of course those were legs, but the shape definitely caught my eyes before color or even the moose shape.

More often than not, particularly with moose however, I use my ears first. Moose are the noisiest critters in the woods (besides people of course). You can usually hear them coming from a mile away.

Cheers