Thread: Cleaning Hunting Clothing

Last week when back at the hut and hanging up a pig with two mates, the conversation progressed to how to remove blood and clean hunting gear.
Both my mates use cold water to remove blood. One washes only in water, and the other leaves his gear beside the washing machine and the washing fairy cleans it.
Sportwash, cheese grater and sunlight soap, organic plant based cleaners etc - been there tried all those

In my experience / experiments I now recommend the following for anyone interested:

Firstly, blood should be removed with warm 'blood temp' water. Dried blood may need a couple of water changes to get all of it out, but always warm. If cold water is used often a ring stain is left on the clothing where each patch of blood was.

To clean mud, sweat and tears off your now bloodless gear, common old Baking Soda is the go to. Tried this after listening to Shannon Lush on Saturday morning radio live years ago on her weekly show. Cheap as old chips, cleans, sanitises, De-odourises and no UV brighteners !! Also good on wool, socks and undies if you wear them

So put the hunting gear in the machine add about twice as much baking soda as you would use laundry powder hit start and come back to clean gear.
Do not use normal washing powders or liquids if you don't want to be seen. These contain UV brighteners that make the clothes reflect UV and to us look clean and bright. Even the ones that don't list them.
Animals and insects can see UV like a colour, we cannot. Wash your gear with it and you are now a big Florescent man thing creeping round the forest.
Florescent vests and the like are very visible to us because the phosphorus in them converts some of the 'non visible light spectrum' into visible light, so that these florescent items actually emit more visible light than the objects around them. Use ordinary washing powder and you are wearing an animal visible floro vest. Remember to tell your mum "Don't wash my beany with washing powder or laundry liquid".