The Blocker Outdoors® Shield™ Silentec Jacket and Pant, now in Realtree AB1™, stay quiet for whitetails that hear far more than we ever will
A whitetail’s ear is about seven inches long, and each one swivels on its own. One can be pointed at the creek bottom while the other works the ridge behind you, and the deer never has to turn its head. Every deer hunter has watched it happen. Fewer of us know the science behind it.
In 2007, researchers at the University of Georgia ran whitetails through auditory brainstem testing and found their hearing is sharpest between 4 and 8 kilohertz. That doesn’t mean much until you put it in real terms. The highest key on a piano rings at about 4 kHz. The hiss of the letter “S” in a whisper sits up around 6 to 8 kHz. That’s the deer’s sweet spot, and it’s also where the soft, brushy sounds a hunter makes tend to live. A few years later, a pair of Ohio audiologists trained deer to respond to test tones and found they could pick up sounds as high as 54 kHz, and 64 kHz when the volume went up. That’s dog whistle territory, literally. A dog whistle works in a range no human ear can catch, and a whitetail hears it just fine.
Our own hearing tops out around 20 kHz, and that’s for a kid. Remember the “mosquito” ringtones teenagers used to sneak past their teachers? They worked at about 17 kHz because most adults can’t hear that high anymore. If you’ve got some gray in your beard, odds are that range left you a while back.
The deer’s ears don’t wear out, either. In much of the whitetail’s range, few bucks live past three, so nearly every deer you hunt is listening with factory-fresh equipment. It hears what you can’t, like the scratch of a sleeve across bark or a pant leg brushing the ladder rail. That’s the whole idea behind the Shield Silentec Jacket and Pant from Blocker Outdoors.
Quiet Starts On The Outside
Silentec has been one of the most popular lines in the Blocker lineup since it debuted in 2019, and the reason is simple. The jacket wears a soft micro-fleece exterior and the pant a stretch micro-fleece. Neither one rasps or crinkles when it moves.
Drag a sleeve across the shooting rail or ease a knee against the platform with a deer at 15 yards, and the fabric stays out of the conversation. “Hunters spend a lot of time thinking about wind and scent, and they should,” said Steve Allie, Marketing Director for NEXUS Outdoors. “But a deer doesn’t need to smell you to leave. It just needs to hear one sound that doesn’t belong. Silentec takes your outerwear off the list of things that can give you away.”
Warm Without The Bulk
Every hunter knows the routine. You work up a sweat on the walk in, climb the stand, and twenty minutes later that sweat turns cold and has you shivering. That’s where the lining in Silentec earns its keep.
Both pieces are lined with hexagonal fleece. The raised hex pattern on the inside leaves tiny pockets of air against your body, and those pockets trap heat. The open channels between them let moisture move out and away, so you dry quicker and stay warm once you’re settled in.
Because the hex pattern uses less fabric than a solid fleece, you get the warmth without the bulk that crowds a bowstring or stiffens your draw. Silentec is built on a lightweight, technical, athletic fabric, so it moves the way you do. It’s light enough for September sits, and it layers right up when November mornings start to bite.
Details For The Way You Actually Hunt
On the jacket, the adjustable hood has multi-position placement, so it stays put without blocking your side vision when a deer slips in from the off side. A hidden harness port lets you wear your safety harness underneath, keeping the tether clean and quiet. One chest pocket and two waist pockets handle the essentials.
Bottom Half, Same Silence
The Shield Silentec Pant carries the same quiet down to your boots. Articulated knees make climbing and kneeling easier, and an elastic rear waistband dials in the fit without a belt digging in on a long sit. Storage is generous, too. You get two waist pockets, two rear pockets and two cargo pockets, so the rangefinder, release and grunt call each have a home.
Scent Control Built In
Both pieces are treated with S3® Technology. Silver ions bind to and penetrate the surface of odor-causing bacteria on contact, disrupting the microbe’s DNA. That stops odor before it ever forms and keeps your garments fresher, longer.
Being quiet gets a deer close. Keeping your scent in check helps keep it there.
Not Just Deer Gear
Whitetails are the headline here, though Silentec pulls its weight well beyond the rut. It’s just as handy on a cool spring morning calling in a gobbler or slipping in on a bugling bull elk. “We hear it from customers all the time. Once they try Silentec, it becomes the set they grab first,” Allie said. “It’s quiet, it’s comfortable, and it’s priced so a hunter doesn’t have to think twice about it. That 4.8-star rating on our website says it better than I can.”
Now In Realtree AB1
Quiet takes care of a whitetail’s ears. Its eyes are another matter, and that’s where Realtree AB1™ comes in.
AB1 is Realtree’s newest pattern, and Blocker Outdoors is leading the way in bringing it to hunters. Most camo starts in a design studio. AB1 started in the woods, taking its cues from the irregular shapes of fractured rock and weathered timber. The real trick is in the layout. Directional elements cut across the shoulders, arms and torso, breaking up both your outline and your movement. That matters at full draw, when a deer is close enough to hear a whisper and you’ve got to move anyway. Because nothing in the pattern repeats or settles into a recognizable shape, AB1 blends into the terrain across changing light and distances.
SHIELD SILENTEC JACKET FEATURES:
- Deadly quiet micro-fleece exterior
- Hexagonal fleece liner for warmth without bulk
- Adjustable hood with multi-position placement for clear visibility
- Hidden harness port for wearing a safety harness underneath
- Three pockets: one chest, two waist
- S3® Technology silver antimicrobial treatment stops odor before it forms
PATTERN: NEW Realtree AB1™
SIZES: SM–3XL; talls MT–2XLT MSRP: $119.99
SHIELD SILENTEC PANT FEATURES:
- Deadly quiet stretch micro-fleece exterior
- Hexagonal fleece liner for warmth and wind protection
- Articulated knees for mobility
- Elastic rear waistband for a custom fit
- Six pockets: two waist, two rear, two cargo
- S3® Technology silver antimicrobial treatment stops odor before it forms
PATTERN: NEW Realtree AB1™
SIZES: SM–3XL; talls LGT–3XLT MSRP: $119.99
