Two completely different products get sold under the words “custom hunting apparel”, and most clubs order the wrong one.
The first is club identity apparel shirts, polos, hoodies and caps carrying your club name and logo. Worn at the clubhouse, at events, in the truck, at the diner afterwards. This is what most suppliers are actually selling.
The second is technical field apparel waterproof shells, layered systems, scent-control fabrics, quiet outer materials. Worn in the field, in weather, for hours.
They share almost nothing: different fabrics, different construction, different price brackets, different suppliers. Knowing which one you are buying is the whole decision.
Which Product Does Your Club Actually Need?
Most hunting clubs need identity apparel, not technical field gear. Members usually buy their own field clothing to their own preferences, and a club-branded set of shirts and hoodies is what actually gets worn and seen.
Club identity apparel makes sense when:
- You want members recognisable at events, meets, and shoots
- You are running a fundraiser or selling to supporters
- You want something new members receive on joining
- Members already own field gear they are attached to
Technical field apparel makes sense when:
- You are outfitting guides or paid staff who need matching field kit
- Your club runs commercial hunts and wants a uniform look in the field
- You are a brand producing hunting gear for resale
The practical reality for most clubs: field clothing is a personal choice. Hunters have strong preferences on fit, warmth, and pattern, and they have already spent money on it. A club-branded technical jacket often sits in a closet while a club hoodie gets worn every week.
This guide focuses mainly on club identity apparel, with a section on the field-layer pieces that clubs do commonly order.
What Clubs Usually Order
A typical club order covers four to six items, sized across a wide range of adult body types.
| Item | Why clubs order it | Decoration |
| Short-sleeve shirt or polo | Everyday club wear, events, warm seasons | Sublimation or embroidery |
| Long-sleeve shirt | Season wear, sun protection, layering | Sublimation |
| Hoodie or sweatshirt | Most-worn item in almost every club order | Embroidery or print |
| Cap | Cheapest per unit, highest visibility | Embroidery |
| Quarter-zip or fleece | Cold-weather club layer | Embroidery |
| Base layer or mid layer | Field use, worn under a member’s own shell | Sublimation |
| Blaze orange vest or cap | Legal requirement in many areas | Print or embroidery |
If your budget is limited, the hoodie and the cap deliver the most wear per pound spent. The polo is the item most likely to be over-ordered and under-worn.
Blaze Orange: The Legal Part
Hunter orange requirements are set by law and vary by jurisdiction, often by species, season, and land type. This is the one part of a hunting apparel order where getting it wrong has consequences beyond aesthetics.
What typically varies between jurisdictions:
- How much orange is required, often expressed as a minimum square-inch area visible from all sides
- Which garments must carry it some require an outer garment above the waist, some require headwear as well
- Which seasons and species it applies to
- Whether camo-pattern orange counts, which is a real distinction in some places
Two practical notes for a club order:
Check your own jurisdiction before specifying, and check it for the current season. Requirements are set by state or regional wildlife agencies and do get updated. Do not rely on what a supplier tells you, or on what the rule was three years ago.
Fluorescent orange is a specific colour, not just bright orange. Fluorescent pigments reflect in a particular way, which is the entire point they stay visible in low light and flat conditions. A regular orange dye that looks similar in a mockup may not meet the requirement. Ask your manufacturer to confirm the fabric is genuinely fluorescent, and ask for a physical swatch.
The same logic applies here as in high-visibility workwear, where visibility performance is specified rather than eyeballed our guide on safety vest colours covers how those standards work, and our notes on ANSI 107 high-visibility apparel explain the testing behind fluorescent fabrics.
Camo Patterns and the Licensing Issue
Realtree, Mossy Oak and similar patterns are licensed intellectual property. You cannot send a manufacturer a photograph of a Realtree garment and ask them to reproduce the pattern.
This catches clubs out constantly, because those are the patterns everyone pictures. A manufacturer offering them holds a licence to do so.
Your options:
Generic camo patterns. Woodland, digital, and leaf patterns exist in non-proprietary forms. Any manufacturer can print these.
A custom pattern designed for your club. Original artwork, so no licensing issue and you end up with something nobody else has. Often the better answer, because a club-specific pattern reinforces identity in a way a stock pattern cannot.
A licensed supplier. If you specifically want a named brand pattern, order from someone who holds that licence. Expect higher cost and fewer customisation options.
One design note worth knowing: on club apparel, camo usually works better as an accent than as full coverage. A solid shirt with a camo yoke, or camo sleeves on a solid body, reads as club identity. Full camo reads as generic hunting apparel, and your logo disappears into it. Our guide on camo baseball jerseys covers the legibility problem in detail it applies identically here.
Designing for a Club Rather Than a Team
Hunting club apparel is worn socially, in public, off the field. That makes it closer to a brand than to a sports uniform, and it should be designed accordingly.
Four differences from a sports team order:
No numbers. Nothing to size, nothing to reissue, and members can pass garments on.
Names are optional and usually better left off. An unnamed hoodie can go to a new member, a supporter, or a fundraising sale. A named one cannot.
Design for people who are not members. Club apparel gets seen at petrol stations, hardware stores, and diners. A clean crest on a plain garment travels much better than an all-over graphic.
One design, many garments. Put the same crest on the cap, the hoodie, the polo, and the vest. Consistency across items does more for club identity than variety.
A practical suggestion: design a simple, small crest for embroidery and a larger version for print, both from the same artwork. The small one goes on caps and polos, the large one on hoodie backs and vests.
Decoration Embroidery or Sublimation
Choose embroidery for solid garments and simple logos, sublimation for patterned or multi-colour designs. Most club orders use both.
Embroidery works well on hoodies, caps, polos, and fleece. It looks premium, lasts indefinitely, and suits the traditional feel most hunting clubs want. Cost rises with stitch count, so a detailed logo costs more than a simple one. It cannot do gradients or photographic detail.
Sublimation prints into the fabric, so unlimited colours, camo patterns, and full coverage cost nothing extra. It requires polyester, which rules out cotton-feel garments.
Screen printing sits between them on cost, works on cotton, but is limited on colour count and will eventually crack with washing.
The combination most clubs land on: embroidered crest on caps, polos, and fleece; sublimated or printed designs on performance shirts and anything with camo.
For a detailed comparison, see our guide on embroidery versus screen printing.
Fabric Choices That Matter
Two fabric decisions carry most of the outcome for club apparel: whether the garment is polyester or cotton, and how heavy it is.
Polyester is required for sublimation, dries fast, and holds colour. Best for performance shirts, base layers, and anything with an all-over pattern.
Cotton and poly-cotton feel better for casual wear and suit hoodies and t-shirts. Cannot be sublimated use embroidery or print.
Fleece-backed poly for cold-weather layers, around 280 to 320 GSM.
Two things clubs commonly ask about that are worth being straight on:
Quiet fabric. In field apparel, “quiet” means fabric that does not rustle against branches usually a brushed or napped face. This is a genuine feature on technical outer layers. It is not relevant to a club hoodie, and a supplier selling you a “quiet” club polo is selling you a word.
Scent control. Some hunting fabrics carry carbon or silver-based treatments intended to reduce scent. These are specialist finishes on technical field garments, and their effectiveness is debated among hunters. They are not something to specify on identity apparel.
For weight decisions, see our notes on fabric weight and GSM.
Sizing a Club Order
Club rosters run wider than sports teams. Expect small through 4XL, and expect requests for tall sizes.
Practical notes:
Collect sizes, do not estimate. Send a form. Members are adults and can report their own size, but give them a size chart with actual garment measurements rather than just S/M/L.
Order relaxed, not fitted. Hunting club apparel is layered over other clothing and worn by a wide range of body types. Athletic-cut garments will generate complaints.
Include tall options if you can. Many manufacturers offer a longer body length at no extra cost if you specify at the order stage. Almost nobody thinks to ask.
Order extras in the middle sizes. New members join throughout the year. A club with unsold stock in large and XL has something to hand a new member on day one, which is worth more than the tied-up cash.
Consider a two-phase order. Run the design, take pre-orders from members with sizes attached, then place the bulk order with a spare allocation on top. This removes the guesswork entirely.
Fundraising and Supporter Sales
Club apparel often pays for itself, and sometimes more, when it is sold to supporters as well as members.
A few notes if that is part of your plan:
Design one item to sell, not the whole range. A hoodie or a cap. Supporters do not want a technical base layer.
Leave names off entirely. Anything named is unsellable.
Price above cost, not at cost. Supporters buying club apparel expect to be contributing. A modest margin is normal and nobody objects.
Order the sale item and the member item together. Combining the quantities usually crosses a price tier that neither would reach alone, which lowers the unit cost on both.
Take pre-orders before producing. Selling from stock is a risk; selling from a pre-order list is not.
What to Send Your Manufacturer
Send these six things for a first mockup:
- Club logo in vector format AI, EPS, or SVG. A website JPEG will print soft.
- Club colours as exact codes, not descriptions
- The garment list which items, and rough quantities per item
- Decoration preference per item, or ask for a recommendation
- Any blaze orange requirement for your jurisdiction, stated in the specification
- Size list, or a note that you are running pre-orders first
Two questions to ask back:
Can you supply a physical fabric swatch? Especially for fluorescent orange and for any camo, where screen colours mislead.
Will you hold our artwork for reorders? Clubs reorder in small batches for new members. A manufacturer who keeps the file makes that a simple repeat rather than a new setup.
Conclusion
The main thing to settle before ordering is which product you are actually buying. A club that orders technical field gear when its members want hoodies ends up with unworn stock; a club that orders identity apparel and describes it as field kit ends up with disappointed members. They are different categories and it is worth being clear about it upfront.
For most clubs the right order is a small range hoodie, cap, one shirt, and a blaze orange item if your jurisdiction requires one carrying one consistent crest, in relaxed sizing, with no names on anything. That set gets worn, gets seen, and can be sold to supporters or handed to new members without alteration.
We manufacture custom club apparel in sublimated polyester and embroidered cotton and fleece, including fluorescent high-visibility garments, from a 20-piece minimum with mixed sizes counted as one order. Send us your logo, colours, and garment list and we will come back with mockups and fabric swatches before you commit to anything.