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Camo is a funny thing, some people love it some hate it, some think it’s useless and then the people who do like it often don’t agree as to the best colour and style to be used. Regardless of your beliefs I think it would be hard to argue that the more one can break up their outline, no matter what you wear then the better chance you have of stalking game, especially if a bow hunter.
HA recently spent a few days in the hills testing the Sable Airflow Buffalo Camo Leaf suit from Ridgeline. The first thing you notice about this suit is how light it is. It will literally scrunch up into a backpack or bum bag and is quite frankly amazing as to how little space it takes up. The next thing we noticed was its versatility. If it’s hot and you were hunting up in the Gulf, you would throw a set of this gear on over your jocks, and you would be cool as all day long. Alternatively when the months get cooler and the night’s cold we just threw the suit on over the top of jeans, jackets and whatever other warm gear we were wearing and it was no problem at all to get around in.
We did have a few reservations with the suit. Them being -
- I thought it may be noisy
- It would pick up every bit of grass stick or burr
- Its thin material so how robust was it?
First of all the jacket has a hood and face mask built in which is pretty cool as it’s very easy to throw over your face quickly and if the face mask annoys you well just use the hood. The jacket has an elastic stretch cord neck to tighten up and the pants have the same style to get the correct fitment for your waist.
As stated in the concerns earlier I thought the suit could be noisy but in fact it was not really different to any other clothing we wore and truth be told some normal winter jackets would make more noise through the bush. As far as picking up grass burrs and sticks; it picked up very little sticks & seeds and I’m not entirely sure why as when you look at it you would have to say everything would stick like Velcro but it just doesn’t, if that makes sense. I’m not saying it will be perfect but we never had a problem. Lastly I was a little concerned as to how tough the suit is. The mesh looks nice, it breathes and works great but I thought it would leave a little to be desired if caught on a fence, branch or the like. It didn’t seem to rip or want to but then again after a year’s use it may be different; time will be the telling factor but for the HA team no probs were encountered. We didn’t test the suit by drawing the string back on a bow but the suit seems to be tailored well enough that it does hug the body shape somewhat and maybe there are some bow hunters out there using the item that could write in and let us know their thoughts.
Because the suit has the leafy appearance I think this will help it break up the outline of the body over a wider range of terrain than a basic cotton camo shirt and pants so for someone like myself that doesn’t hunt wearing a lot of camo this would be one of the suits I’d more than likely wear. The mesh that the leaves are attached to is quite robust and it also has a camo appearance which I like as it could have been left one colour with the amount of leaves but it just goes to show Ridgeline takes pride in the product.
Photographs Of The Suit While In The Field
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