Early Season Hunting Conditions

Depending on where you hunt and exactly when you’re in the field, early-season hunting can be brutal. For example, sitting in a ground blind near an antelope watering hole or putting the stalk on a Western muley can cause you to sweat like you were trying to earn a spot in the NFL combine. You’d think that sitting perched in a tree would offer some relief due to the wind, but that’s not always true either. Hot and humid conditions without any breeze can be just as tough 15 feet up. Traditional cotton shirts or blue jeans don’t work well in these situations because they don’t breathe well or wick your sweat away. As a result, your clothes just stay wet and eventually start to stink. Not ideal for hunting, especially if you’re on a multi-day trip out west. At the same time, some southern or western hunts may take you through some challenging terrain, where briars, thorns, and other vegetation tears at your hunting clothes. That means your lightweight hunting clothing also needs to be durable (to avoid constant rips/tears and keep your skin safe). But if you go too thick and heavy-duty on the material of your pants (e.g., thick briar-resistant chaps or blue jeans), you will have overheating issues again. It’s a bit of a balancing act. Last, your hot weather camo clothing needs to provide good camouflage in a variety of habitats. From the dry summer grasses and sporadic tree cover out west to the mature forests of the Midwest to field edges and swamps almost anywhere, your camo pattern needs to blend in or you won’t have much luck this season. On many early season hunts, the vegetation will still be somewhat green, so you definitely need a little green in your camo pattern to blend in.