Choosing the Right Hunting Clothing: Camouflage vs. Black Inside a Ground Blind

Ground blinds are a fantastic way to stay concealed when hunting all manners of game animals. While some of these blinds are constructed out of natural materials, many companies sell lightweight pop-up ground blinds. These blinds offer great concealment while also giving good visibility to the hunter.

For hunters new to using these camouflage blinds often hear two opposing viewpoints about what they should wear when sitting inside of the blind. Trying to find information on what the best clothing to wear is often confusing as there is a lot of conflicting information online.

What it comes down to is that you can wear clothing with hunting camouflage patterns or black clothing. Each option has advantages and disadvantages, and your decision will depend on your specific hunting needs.

When you sit inside a camouflage ground blind, you expose yourself to game animals through the opening that you look and shoot through. Many ground blinds are made from fabric that allows you to see out but not for the animals to see inside. Many of these blinds have wide fields of view, often up to 270 degrees.

In most cases, these blinds will have a solid back wall, which is often dark in colour. This solid rear wall helps to eliminate the problem of the animals seeing movement through the mesh walls of the blind. Sitting in front of a solid background will often have the effect of silhouetting you. That is unless you wear something that will break up your outline.

Hunting camouflage is specifically designed to break up your outline and make you less visible to the eyes of most game animals.

Another advantage is that camouflage mimics the environment around you, which makes the difference in appearance between the ground blind, the background, and yourself not nearly as apparent. This means you will be less likely to be noticed by the wary eyes of the animals you’re hunting.

You can also choose a camouflage pattern that matches the pattern of the hunting blind which makes you look like a part of the blind and hopefully the environment.

Even though camouflage clothing has many advantages, black clothing has a role to play in some circumstances.

The inside of a ground blind is darker than the surrounding area, especially on overcast days. If you wear camouflage in an environment like this, the contrast between the dark interior and your lighter-coloured clothing may amplify any movements that you make.

This is where black clothing can be more effective.

When you wear black clothing, your movements are less obvious, allowing you to get ready to shoot without fear that the animal will notice you. This is true because black tends to absorb light rather than reflect it.

Even though camouflage is the better option when you are hunting in conditions of low light or overcast days, you might want to consider wearing black instead.

One of the biggest factors in deciding what to wear in your ground blind is the environment that you will be hunting in. Consider the vegetation, terrain, and the background when setting up your blind and deciding what to wear. Placing your ground blind in a position that maximizes its camouflage sets you up to have the best opportunity to stay hidden regardless of the clothing that you choose.

When you are hunting in an area that is well lit and exposed, or the sun is shining into your blind, it would be best to wear camouflage that matches the pattern of the ground blind or the environment around you.

When the sun is behind you, casting shadow over the blind, or the conditions are low light, you would do better wearing black.

The environment is not the only consideration. The vison capability of your prey is a very important consideration you need to make.

As a hunter, you will understand how well your prey can see. Use this knowledge to inform your decisions on what to wear in the ground blind. You may want to optimize for concealment and breaking up of your outline if your prey has keen eyesight but be more concerned with minimizing the effects of movement for prey that see’s movement and not detail.

Your best option is layering camouflage over black to have the best of both world available to you at all times. You can wear a black base layer and wear camouflage over top of it. This way, you can remove the camouflage if the conditions dictate that black is a better option and you can put the camouflage back on when conditions or lighting changes.

You can also mix and match black and camouflage to maximize their advantages.

You can keep camouflage on your head and hands to break up the outline and mask movement while wearing black on your torso to keep yourself in shadow.

Neither of the options listed here are the best for every situation. To this end, if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your ground blind hunting, you would be best advised to layer these options.

Wearing a base layer of black underneath a camouflage outer clothing allows you to tailor your attire to the environment, weather, and lighting. This is the best option for moist hunting situations and will give you the best versatility.

Ground blinds are a great tool for many hunting situations, but it is important not to let what you are wearing ruin your day out in the woods.