How to Wear a Ghillie Suit
A ghillie suit is a heavy camouflage garment intended to resemble ground vegetation. Although currently associated with military sharpshooters, hunters, and paint-ballers, the ghillie suit is considered the brainchild of Scottish shepherds and game wardens who attached strips of cloth and and local vegetation to their clothing for total concealment from predators and poachers.
Modern ghillie suits are designed in a variety of styles, weights and configurations, using either ponchos, overalls, or military fatigues, with netting as a base, layered in strips of burlap and bunches of jute or synthetic fiber and topped with local or artificial vegetation.
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Things You'll Need
- Ghillie suit
- Hood, hat and/or mask
- Sharp knife or pruners
- Local vegetation
- Mud
Instructions
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How to Wear a Ghillie Suit
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1
Choose the clothing and gear that you intend to wear and use with your ghillie suit carefully. For a ghillie suit made from netting, meant to be worn over your clothing, select subdued earth-tones, similar to those in the suit's three-dimensional camouflaged fabric, sometimes referred to as garnish. Military-style fatigues suit this purpose well, as they will not only blend well into the overall ghillie suit camouflage, but will also provide the wearer with access to pockets.
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Inspect your footwear. Shiny black boots can stick out like a sore thumb when paired with a ghillie suit. Aside from the many styles and configurations of camouflaged footwear available on the market, an old pair of boots can be easily customized to match a ghillie suit, using matte or satin finish spray paint. Mud or camouflage face paint can provide a temporary fix to the problem of conspicuous footwear.
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Remember that a ghillie suit can add between five and fifteen pounds to the total weight of your gear and will be very hot, even in milder climates. Avoid wearing heavy coats, sweaters or long underwear under a ghillie suit, unless in an extremely cold environment.
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Consider the addition of a hydration pack under your ghillie suit, as accessing a traditional canteen or water bottle may be difficult. This addition will allow you to avoid dehydration with a minimum of fumbling with your gear.
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Rub mud or dirt on the ghillie suit. This serves to add the natural hues of the local soil to your camouflage pattern. Some military snipers even soak their ghillie suits in mud or manure, and/or run their suits over with, or drag them behind, vehicles.
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Use a knife of pruning shears to gather natural materials to attach to the ghillie suit. Use leaves and ground vegetation for the pants or bottom of the poncho and small branches or tall grasses for the upper body and headgear. The vegetation should replaced every three or four hours, as it will become wilted.
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Pay special attention to the area from the shoulders to the head, when applying vegetation to the ghillie suit. Attach enough foliage to distort the distinctive shape of the human head and shoulders.
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Tips & Warnings
While ghillie suits should not be washed; to be effective, they require periodic maintenance in between wearings. Put on the ghillie suit and inspect in a mirror. Most ready-to-wear ghillie suits include replacement fibers. Look for gaps in the camouflage and repair them, using 5-10 strands of jute and adhesive or fishing line, as recommended by the manufacturer of the ghillie suit.
The materials used in ghillie suits are usually extremely flammable. Avoid open flames and smoking while wearing one.
Hunters: Failure to comply with local regulations can result in injury, death, or civil and/or criminal penalties.
