RICHFIELD, Wis. — Blaze pink, authorized in 2016 as a legal hunting color in Wisconsin’s gun deer seasons, has failed to make a splash among hunters, according to several retailers in the state.
Cabela’s in Richfield, one of the state’s largest outdoors stores, didn’t even offer blaze pink hunting coats this season after stocking a limited number in 2016.
A few blaze pink coats were available at nearby Scherper’s, but demand has been soft for the products, said Vice President Nate Scherper.
“We haven’t had a huge response to it,” Scherper said. “We’ve really had very few people looking to buy it.”
Scherper said his store had about 95 percent blaze orange and 5 percent blaze pink items in stock.
“Most of our female customers prefer the orange over the pink,” he said.
Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to allow blaze pink for deer hunting when Gov. Scott Walker signed Assembly Bill 291 into law in February 2016. The law elicited a wide range of responses. Proponents of the bipartisan legislation hoped it would help recruit hunters by offering more options.
But many hunters, including women, considered it a joke or worse.
“I think it’s really misguided,” said Sarah Ingle of Gene-see, president of the Women’s Hunting and Sporting Association and a hunter for about 25 years. “Among the group of women I hunt with, we find it insulting and demeaning.”
About 10 percent of the Wisconsin hunting population is women, but about 35 percent of new gun deer license buyers are, according to Department of Natural Resources statistics.
So far, the hype hasn’t been sufficient to produce strong demand for blaze pink, Scherper said.
“I think it was played up in the state and some excitement was generated about it,” Scherper said. “But from our standpoint, it wasn’t going to be revolutionary and so far it hasn’t been.”
“I think it’s really misguided. Among the group of women I hunt with, we find it insulting and demeaning.”
— Sarah Ingle, Genesee Women’s Hunting and Sporting Association