How Important is Camouflage Clothing When Hunting?

As someone who loves wearing camo, whether that’s while out in the wilderness hunting with my mate, or running errands around town, the invisible jokes run old very quickly. And as obnoxious and ill-humored as they may be, they’re pretty spot on, for the most part.

Just the other day I was with my friend John in the middle of an open grassland wearing full camo clothing, when a bunch of feral boars passed just a few meters from us. The weird thing was that they didn’t even pay much attention to us. Now whether that was deliberate or not, I wasn’t certain, so I guessed they weren’t really bothered by our presence.

However, once John stood up, the feral boars scattered quickly, which solved my dilemma – they didn’t see us! So I guess that my new camo made me a back-country ninja. So now the question arises – is buying camouflage clothing online, or from a brick-and-mortar store, going to make you a successful hunter?

It probably won’t be the deciding factor, but it will certainly help. I think a proof of this is the millions of animals successfully hunted down by people who didn’t wear any camouflage clothing. In fact, many of them have done it in their blue jeans and flamboyant shirts. However, that doesn’t mean that hunting certain animals with camo does not indeed help.

Many animals see much differently than us, so you need to conduct some research on the type of animals they’re hunting, and which colors they’re the least responsive to. For instance, deer have dichromatic vision, meaning they only have two types of color cells. Feral boars, deer, elk, goats, and sheep only have the green-yellow and blue-ish light cells. Pink, red, purple and orange aren’t apparent to them, that’s why orange clothing is considered the safety color for hunters in the field.

Despite being considered predators, coyote, and other predators have a similar vision to ungulates. However, some of them, like the coyote, have some degree of UV sensitivity as well. Furthermore, most predators have better visual acuity, although it’s still worse than humans. That being said, wearing camo may be important when hunting for them, but it isn’t critical. In that case, it’s more important to stand still than what you are wearing.

So when you’re shopping for camouflage clothing online, take into account the types of animals you’ll be hunting most frequently, so you can take advantage of their shortcomings. Additionally, the type of terrain you’ll be hunting on is also a factor you should consider when choosing your camouflage.