Stop Glasses from Fogging while Hunting

When dealing with nature, unpredictability is the name of the game. Hunters know this especially well. Rain, snow, wind, fog…all can occur at the most unexpected and unwanted times of the day or night. You can’t avoid or predict the weather; the next best thing to do is prepare properly handle it, in all its various forms.

For hunters, perhaps the most common of troublesome weather occurrences is fog. Forests or wooded areas contain a lot of moisture that the sun cannot reach to evaporate, and such areas also experience rapid temperature changes, especially in the early morning hours…which are also, unfortunately, the prime hours to hunt game. When the colder nighttime temperatures clash with the rising of the sun, fog is a certain result.

Fog obscures a hunter’s vision in more ways than one. Obviously, a heavy fog bank makes it much harder to spot and target game. The moisture can also be detrimental to a hunter’s rifle or other equipment. Fog also clouds your shooting glasses. Surely there isn’t an experienced hunter reading this who hasn’t missed a shot or lost sight of an animal due to moisture running down his or her lenses, or given away a position because of the movement and noise they made while wiping down their shooting glasses.

The answer is not to leave the glasses at home. Safety glasses are extremely important in adjusting for lighting conditions, correcting vision if you wear a prescription, and most critically, protecting vision from branches, metal shards, gun recoils, wood splinters, and dozens of other eye hazards found in the hunting environment. No, you need to wear safety glasses at all times…but you can treat them to better handle the effects of moisture.

If you are in the market for new shooting glasses, you may want to opt for an anti-fog coating that can be permanently applied to your new lenses. This chemical coating, applied and cured by heat so that it remains clear and functional for the life of your glasses, prevents water molecules from combining, thus avoiding the formation of a fog layer that will obscure your vision. If you already own a trusty and favorite pair of hunting glasses, you can purchase one of the following anti-fog sprays or pastes to apply to your lenses:

Fog Free Lens Coating – in a two ounce pump-spray bottle.

Cat Crap Anti-Fog – in a paste format for rub on, rub off protection, available individually or in a care kit that includes a microfiber cloth and multi-headed optical screwdriver.

Cat Crap Anti-Fog – in a spray-on format, available by itself or as part of a larger cleaning care kit that includes a microfiber buffing cloth and optical screwdriver.

The above products are applied to your existing lenses, then are wiped off or buffed out. Once applied, they will perform just like an optical lab coating for a certain period of time. They will wear off – the lifespan of any particular application varies, depending on weather conditions, use, and how often you wipe off your lenses – so will need to be reapplied at recommended intervals. They do, however, come in small containers that are easily portable.

Either one of these methods will greatly reduce the fogging effects on your safety glasses (or any glasses, for that matter). Clear water droplets will still condense on your lenses, but an anti-fog coating will prevent it from forming into the hazy layer of water that blocks vision.