Benefits of a Ghillie Suit in Hunting

If you are a hunter and want to boost your chances of catching your target, you need to harmonize with your surroundings and disguise from your target. It is not only hunters who may need to camouflage, military men and women and airsoft enthusiast are also required to disguise in their surroundings, which sometimes can be a matter of life and death.

That is where the ghillie suit comes in, it can help you disguise in your hunting environment.

Also known as Wookie suit, a ghillie suit is a kind of clothing designed to mimic heavy vegetation thanks to the loose strips of clothing that look like twigs and leave. The suit creates a 3-D image of the person’s outline instead of a linear image, thus perfectly hiding them away. Some elaborate ghillie suits even move the wind in the same direction as the surrounding foliage.

Due to its importance, it is important to make sure you buy the right one. Ghillie suits are designed to camouflage with different surroundings so it is also important to buy a suit that will disguise you in the environment you intend to hunt.

Is it legal and useful to wear a ghillie suit when hunting?

Yes, it is legal to wear a ghillie suit, but when it comes to usefulness, it depends on where you are hunting. For instance, the suits won’t be really applicable if you are sitting in box sand and enclosed on all sides by the walls because, in this circumstance, you are already disguised.

Should you buy or DIY a ghillie suit

Before technology, people were still disguising themselves when hunting. While hard-core hunters, military snipers, and undercover surveillants may require a 3D tactical leafy ghillie suit, for small-scale hunting, you can create your own camouflage garment using household materials.

The benefit of making your own ghillie suit is that it will sharpen your fieldcraft skill-sets. Also, the information you learn from surveying a hunting area makes a better, more skilled tactician or hunter. Moreover studying the vegetation in your hunting region provides useful clues regarding diet, habitat, and territorial range.

How to make a ghillie suit in #5 steps

Step #1: Gather your supplies

Your raw materials should include a replacement fishing net, raffia, leaves, some artificial plants, cotton, burlap, camo netting, and some painting spray.

Step #2: Prepare the burlap

Almost all ghillie suits will have burlap strips dangling all over it. So to make your own, just use a burlap bag, a roll of netting, or coffee bags. Each ghillie suit requires at least 8 pounds of burlap material.

If you can’t find a burlap material, you use braided jute twine that matches the colors of the hunting area. Jute can be bought at any local supply store.

If the jute twine doesn’t have the colors that match the surrounding, that is where the spray paint comes in. just dye the jute twine to the color of the terrain.

Pay close attention to the greens, browns, and greys in your hunting area and try to match those colors with the dye you have at your disposal.

Step #3: Separate the braids

Unstitch the burlap material or jute into their individual filaments. This will time a huge chunk of your time and is probably the most tedious part of the process, so be patient. After unraveling the elements of the material, use the longest strands on the sleeves and the front of the suit, while shorter strands should go at the back in an overlying pattern.

Step #4: Tie up the burlap

The next step is to tie up the burlap strands into knots and onto the camo netting. The knots don’t have to be fancy, just make sure they are strong enough not to fall off. Also, ensure that no color is dominant than the rest.

Step #5: Add a hood

Though this is optional, I would still recommend that you also include a ghillie hood. Glue a piece of camo netting onto a hat and then knot clumps of jute or burlap fibers onto it. You can also weave in some organic materials like shrubbery, grass, or twigs into the camo netting.

Benefits of wearing a ghillie suit

Wearing a camouflage suit can make you feel protected from the extreme realities of the outdoor including the cold, rain, and other elements.

Ghillie suit will also turn you into a part of the surrounding when hunting, thus allowing you to disguise yourself and position better while prying out your target. It is easier to hunt while wearing a ghillie suit because you also enhance your stealth movement.

Other outdoor activities such as paintballs also make sue of ghillie suits.

So next time you go hunting, make sure you wear the right kind of ghillie suit to enable you to disguise in the surrounding.