Hunting equipment can take up a whole lot of space within your home, especially since it often can't be used all year round. If you want to free up some storage room in your house, you may want to consider putting your hunting equipment into a storage unit. However, before doing so, you should make sure that you properly prepare all of your equipment to ensure that it does not become damaged or unusable while it is not being used.

Clean Your Equipment

The first thing that you should do before you put all of your hunting equipment into storage is to thoroughly clean it. However, you shouldn't just throw your camouflage into the washing machine, as it will pick up the perfumes associated with detergents and your other clothes. Instead, just wipe away any dirt or other contaminants which may have become stuck onto the fabric with a wet cloth or sponge. This will inhibit mold growth while in storage and ensure that the materials of your equipment will not degrade while in storage.

Proper Storage Techniques

Once all of your items are cleaned, you should put all of your equipment that is made out of fabric (such as tents, clothes, backpacks, and winter gear) into a plastic container, separate from any other hunting equipment or other items that you may have in your storage unit. This is largely to prevent human scents from setting into your gear, which could ruin your first hunting trip once you take your stuff out of storage by alerting animals to your presence.

Climate Control

While climate controlled storage units do cost more than their more basic counterparts, they provide a greater degree of protection for your hunting gear, especially fabrics like camouflage and tenting. By maintaining a constant temperature and humidity level, mold and mildew growth is curtailed and temperature fluctuations that could wreak havoc with more delicate pieces of equipment are prevented (for example, extreme heat can cause boots and animal calls to degrade).

Firearms

Lastly, you should check with the storage facility that you are going to be renting from to see if they will allow you to keep firearms within your storage unit. Some facilities do, some don't, and otherwise require additional charges or security measures to be put into place if you do decide to store firearms in your unit. Carefully weigh the considerations of storing a firearm in a storage unit: it may make more legal sense and be safer to keep it in your home in a gun safe than to put it into a storage unit.