What Is the Best Camo Pattern for Hunting?
When it comes to hunting, making sure you are as concealed as possible is always a good idea. Camouflaged suits and gear are the best chances you’ve got for blending into your environment and getting as close to any wildlife as possible. If you want to target prey that’s skittish or highly alert, then camouflaging your gun may be just as necessary as camouflaging your body.
The best camouflage pattern to use is entirely dependent on where and when you are planning on hunting. There isn’t a universal camo that works for every location. In fact, a camo pattern for one type of environment may make you stand out in a different environment. Seasons also change, bringing plenty of shifts in the environment’s shape and color, not to mention affecting the wildlife’s behavior.
Let’s look at all the different types of biomes (naturally occurring habitats for flora and fauna) and explore what they look like. This will tell us exactly what patterns and colors are needed to blend in, which can then be applied to your suit, gun, or possibly even a vehicle.
What Are All the Different Biomes?
Different parts of the world host various types of biomes, but there is enough consistency throughout all of them to be able to classify them. The classifications are based on the diversity of the area's wildlife, vegetation, soil, and climate.
But of course, the most important thing for us to know is what they look like:
Aquatic Biomes
Aquatic biomes are everywhere, taking many different forms. There isn’t much real estate for hunting in the ocean. That’s just called fishing, and camo isn’t exactly necessary so long as you’ve got some enticing bait. There are, however, plenty of semi-aquatic locations worthy of hunting in.
Lakes and river beds usually house plenty of life, and they tend to attract land animals primarily. Everyone needs to drink, including land wildlife and the shrubbery they might eat from, which the lakes and rivers support. Swamps are another type of semi-aquatic biome, usually marked by frequent rain and muddy, wet landscapes. The foliage can look different from location to location, but marshlands are usually found with various types of bushes, trees, and reeds along the banks that can help with camouflage.
If you’re going to camouflage nearby lakes and rivers, then muted tones and greens are usually a safe bet to complement nearby forests and foliage. The more muted colors will cooperate with rocks or rushing water closer to the lakes and rivers. It’s always worth scouting out your area of interest first to know how to camouflage best since each place is a little different from one another.
Desert Biomes
Desert biomes take a lot of different forms, which may seem strange. We might think of a desert as nothing but mounds and mounds of sand. Although that’s true in some cases, most deserts hold a lot of diversity of terrain. Some contain oases, with the potential to attract lots of wildlife. Some deserts are just as cold as the arctic during the night, which drastically affects the wildlife’s behavior patterns and appearance.
It’s unlikely that you will find yourself hunting in the thick of a desert. The African Savanna offers desert-like and forest-like environments. However, illegally hunting there is a serious problem in Africa. If you find yourself hunting in desert terrain, then it probably looks like the chaparral biome.
This biome is basically a desert, but it contains much more shrubbery and variations like rocks and hills than most other deserts. They are also considerably easier to hunt in compared to the heat and danger of other harsh deserts all around the world.
Camouflage is fairly simple when dealing with any desert: browns. Brown colors are always the way to go. Military uniforms and weapons consist of lighter brown colors to match the sand, but in chaparral, you may find a darker brown will work better. In fact, since there are usually many dry bushes or trees in the area, gilly suits may potentially work even in this biome. Some places like Utah also offer reddish colors throughout the landscape.
Forest Biomes: Temperate
Forests are one of the main biomes, so they deserve to be on this list. Forests are, of course, simply any environment with large clusters of trees. But there are numerous types of forests, each one containing it’s own personality, colors, and wildlife. To understand how to blend in properly to a forest, we need to look at each one.
First, there are temperate forests. Temperate forests are found throughout the United States, among other places. Temperate forests are lush environments filled with vast amounts of trees and foliage of all kinds. The appearance of these forests is probably the most affected by seasonal changes due to hosting so many deciduous trees. Camouflaging into a temperate forest will require you to be tracking the season. In the spring and summer, the forest is filled with vibrant greens everywhere.
In the fall, the colors of the leaves change in varying degrees of warmer tones until the forest floods with a new display of yellows, oranges, and reds. In winter, potential bursts of rain turn into snowfall, covering the forest in mild layers of white. Matching the season’s colors is key for good camouflage.
Forest Biomes: Boreal or Taiga
Next up are the boreal forests, or taiga forests. These forests are the most common forests to find throughout the world, making them the most likely forest location for hunting. They are similar to temperate forests in their capacity for wildlife and vegetation, but the temperature and precipitation look a bit different here. Boreal forests are home to coniferous trees, which usually bear some form of pine needles instead of leaves.
Because of this, there are still plenty of green colors to use to camouflage in the spring, summer, and even the fall. Needle-bearing trees don’t change in color as drastically as leaf-bearing trees do, like deciduous trees. The needles may catch shades of brown in the summer, but the best bet for these forests are muted greens.
When winter finally comes, however, these forests are usually covered in blankets of snow. The ground, bushes, trees, and anything is hidden under mild to thick layers of snow, so white is the color to go with for camouflage.
Forest Biomes: Tropical
The last type of forest is the tropical forest. These are the jungles and rainforests of the world, and their climates and seasons are very constant. Vibrant greens are everywhere in these forests. Mixtures of browns and greens will get you the best camouflage possible- however, hunting in these places is usually either extremely dangerous or completely illegal.
That, paired with their inaccessibility, makes this an unlikely location to be hunting in. Nevertheless, if you’re looking to blend in and survive in jungles, then green is pretty much the only color you need to worry about.
If you’re still unsure of what kind of camo works best for forest environments, look no further than the RealTree camo patterns for GunSkins. GunSkins has partnered with RealTree to bring multiple forest patterns to our vinyl wraps and gear skins perfect for hunting.
Grassland Biomes
Grasslands are a simple biome to try and match. They lightly change with the seasons, and their landscapes and foliage are pretty consistent. Grasslands consist of hills and pastures, and naturally: large bodies of grass. Your suit and your gun should bear a pattern that blends with blades of grass. The color of the grass is usually vibrant to muted green, but it can change to brown or yellow, depending on the season.
Tundra Biomes
The last biome to look out for is the tundra biome. The characteristic of this biome is snow. Snow is, in fact, the highlight of this entire biome, whether it is found in the arctic, spanning for miles and miles, the mountains, covering every peak, or bleeding into some forests, tinting them with a heavy coat of white.
In any of these cases and in any tundra location you find yourself hunting in, white is the color you need to match—sometimes met with mixtures of grey as well. There are many animals worthy of hunting in the tundra, but places like the arctic are a little more dangerous, out of reach, and potentially illegal.
Patterns Based on Season and Location
Now that we’ve looked at all the possible biomes for hunting in, we can understand how different our camouflage will look from place to place and from time to time. After analyzing the landscape, we can do our best to match it. And, if we’re tracking the seasons, then we can match the colors as best as possible.
Greens
Green is the camo color to use for forests, grasslands, and wetlands. The vibrancy of the green depends upon location, and sometimes it’s beneficial to mix it with shades or patterns of brown to blend in with tree trunks, dry and dead foliage, or mud. Many of the locations that would require shades or green may change to vibrant oranges, yellows, or reds in the right season.
Browns
Brown is used in dryer, more barren locations, or some forests depending on their season. Desert-like terrain would also require camo with shades of brown. Using an ample amount of brown is usually good for swamps since the rain constantly adds to the levels of mud.
Whites
White is the best camo pattern to use for snow. To help it blend even further, it’s good to mix it with a shade of brown or grey. Camo patterns for snowy landscapes should feature varying degrees of white and other natural elements. Grey is also effective for mountainous and rocky locations.
Choosing a Pattern
The pattern that you want to accompany your colors depends on the hunting location. Typically, the idea is to print patterns on your suit and gun that either mimic the area's foliage or are identical to it (i.e., printing photos on the surface with vinyl or paint). If there is a lot of grass, then have pictures and colors of grass striping your suit and gun.
If there are many tree branches and bushes, find an image that best mimics the location. Doing this could potentially make it appear as if you’re wearing the foliage or at least the true colors of the location.
The classic green U.S. military camouflage pattern is best for tropical forests but can work in temperate forests. Changing the color to brown or white can help, depending on the environment.
Find the Best Camo Patterns at GunSkins
No matter what you need camo for, GunSkins premium vinyl wraps have you and your guns covered – literally. With GunSkins, you can easily transform your gun to any environment you encounter. Following these simple steps and with only a few tools you may already have, you can apply your GunSkin quickly: No spray paint required.
Our wraps are easy to apply to guns of all types and come in various camo patterns for every environment.
Sources:
What's the Best Camo on the Market? | WideOpenSpaces.com
Best All-Around Camouflage Pattern Across Multiple Biomes | SurvivalFreedom.com
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