Camo Guide by Region
There is no single best camouflage for any one region around the United States.
Seasons change.
Plants cycle and snow comes and goes.
The environment is always different.
However, each region of the States has its own predominant environment, and that's how this guide is formed. Use your best judgement to gauge the atmosphere you'll be in when you do your hunting. Adjust your camo to suit your needs, and equip yourself with the hunting essentials.
Patterns are on the top. Color schemes are on the left. The intersection of the pattern and color scheme are where you'll find your region's optimal camouflage.
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| Woodland | Midwest | Northeast | Pacific Northwest | Northeast |
| Marshland | South | |||
| Arid /Dessert | Southwest | Southwest | ||
| Arctic | Northeast | Midwest | Northeast |
How Hunting Camo Works
The most important function of camouflage is to hide the human figure. But how does that happen?
Hiding the human figure starts with breaking up your outline. Almost all human bodies have the same basic shape: a head, two arms, two legs, and a torso. The head sticks out on top, the legs underneath, and the arms out to the side. Animals recognize these shapes as not fitting in with their natural environment, which warns them to stay away. Anything not normally present in their surroundings is something animals fear and avoid, with good reason. They're just trying to be the fittest to survive.
Breaking up the outline of your body has a lot to do with the colors and how consistent they are throughout the outfit. The colors, as you most likely know, should match the environment you're in. Arid / desert settings should have lighter browns, tans, and mild greens, maybe with some very subtle pinks added in. Forest settings use darker greens, browns, tans, and sometimes blacks. Snowy environments are best hidden in when you're covered in whites, dark blues, and near blacks, to blend in with the trees and rocks sticking out from under the snow.
Why Camo Works
Trophy animals like deer have distinctly different eyesight characteristics from humans. The human eye contains three types of cones (light and color photoreceptors), but the white tail deer only has two. So, where humans have trichromatic eyes, deer’s are only bichromatic. The missing cone is responsible for absorbing the longer light wavelengths that produce what we know as red and orange colors. This is basically why deer don’t respond to blaze orange. However, because their eyes lack UV filtering, shorter color wavelengths stick out like a sore thumb. So your denim jeans are out, and you may need to stock up and blend in.
Additionally, deer have a wide horizontal band of focus, allowing them to see much more of the landscape without turning their heads. For example, imagine if you could see what’s in the corner of your eye with the same acuity as what is right in front of you.
The physical placement of the eyes on their head gives them further peripheral vision, allowing them to see movement from nearly every angle with small turns of the head.
However, deer are relatively nearsighted when compared to humans. This means that they cannot pick out fine details at a distance. Proper camo exploits this advantage by taking away the visual differences deer depend on. That’s why if you’re still a deer will have trouble seeing you, even if it seems to be staring.
Shop Camo Hunting Gear
Unfortunately for hunters, many places require gun hunters to wear blaze orange or other bright colors to distinguish yourself from your surroundings. This is a safer way to hunt, but it does make you stand out more to the animals you're trying to hunt. It's a good thing they don't see with the same color spectrum humans have.
Shop camo hunting gear for you and your dog. Browse the variety of products we have to hide not only your shape, but also your smell. We also carry products to help you be more comfortable while you're hunting, and products to help you lug all your gear around.