The Importance of Camouflage When Hunting
When you think about the survival of humanity, hunting is probably one of the skills that we are most lucky to have honed to a sharp killing edge.
Given the fact that we have simply not had the technology to fabricate camouflage clothing, humans have only been able to use camouflage when hunting for a limited period of time.
Yet man often looks to nature and the animals of the world for inspiration for everything from airplanes to biotechnology. Animals use camouflage in nature to avoid predators and remain incognito. It is quite obvious that nature places great importance on camouflage when hunting. Camouflage is a defence mechanism in nature, because it helps interfere with predators pattern recognition. Predators look for the outline or shape of prey, so anything that can break the outline of a familiar shape renders it more difficult to identify for animals with poor vision.
When choosing your hunting clothes, the camouflage pattern you decide on will often be based on the type of environment you are hunting in. We looked at the factors for choosing the right hunting camo pants for men in a recent blog post too! Since the whole point is to break up your outline for wild game, you will not be looking for blaze orange camouflage!
Choosing earth toned camouflage pattern that is comprised of solid colors and is not just black and white, this can be complimented with a camouflage pattern face mask to help hide your human eyes from potential prey.
For hunters, camouflage also helps lend some morale, after all if you have spent a few weeks staking out a spot with an IR camera and waiting for some wild game, then suiting up with camouflage patterned hunting clothes gives you the only (minor) additional advantage possible in the wild.
After all you are taking a leaf (forgive the pun) from nature's own playbook. The important thing to remember is to stick to the hunter's code; if you look after your gear, your gear will look after you.
Ensuring the cleanliness of your clothing is vital when hunting. Most animals rely extensively on their sense of smell to alert them of danger. Think of it like a kind of radar.
By removing scents from yourself, particularly scents of other animals, food and other scents alien to the local environment will definitely alert your prey to your presence if you make the mistake of getting downwind.