Hunting Gear vs Hiking Gear? How do you decide?

Another thought, alot of hiking gear is cross compatible with hunting gear. And if your gear isn't - you should be considering another set up.
 
The cabelas midrotex 6 pocket pants are pretty decent. Warm when wet, quick to dry, and nice and quiet. I originally tried them because they come in tall sizes, and actually fit me. If I ever do another mountain trip (small kids and no time), I might use the cabelas pants for that, too.

I also got an MT-050 "quiet pack parka" in Mossy Oak Breakup, which turns out to be an ugly mustard colour with vague leaves in it. I also got it for $99 on clearance, so yay, mustard colour with leaves. Also comes in tall sizing, but it starts at large tall, and I'm a medium tall guy, so it's pretty roomy. think "smock".

I have a hat, neck gaiter, and gloves all in camo from wal-mart. Next best thing to free. The gloves are FANTASTIC, oddly.

Oh, and I bought a camo bucket hat from "big head hats" in the states. I have a hell of a time finding headwear.
 
Hikers generally aren't worried about being noisy, hunters usually are. I was out a few weeks ago and realized that my backpack, while an excellent piece of Arc'teryx kit, was pretty noisy.
 
VanIsleCam said:
Oh and by the way for the hopefuls, goretex is not waterproof by the way.
Click to expand...

Your one of the very few that realizes that, and it strictly depends on the grade or level of goretex that is used in the garment. Water can be pushed through goretex at 70 Ibs. per sq. in. So if your kneeling or sitting in goretex pants you will notice your butt and knees are getting damp. I do and have owned many pairs of goretex boots and socks, they all leak somewhere. Better than nothing, but they still leak. You want 100% dry, wear rubber boots.
I have good goretex sking pants that you will not get wet in. You can sit on wet chair lift seats all day and slide on your butt half way down the slope and not get wet. But in clothing of this grade there is a trade off and that is breathability. The cloth still breathes but not as well as the cheap stuff. I got this info straight from Gore years ago when I launched a persistent complaint.
We have canoeing dry suits that are Goretex. You can bob around in freezing temp cold water as long as you like and unless you have a leak in a gasket you will be bone dry when you get out. When the water is that cold any leak will tell you instantly where it is. But buy a pair of Goretex hunting pants and sit on a wet stump for half an hour and your undies are going to be wet. Strictly depends on how the garment is made as to what level of waterproofness and breathability your going to achieve.
 
thanks team, hearing your experiences does help a lot.

All the soft quiet fabrics ive witnessed at hunting outfitters all seem to be apparent sponges should they get wet. Do most guys just call off a hunt if its raining as most animals stop foraging/seeking mates?
 
Not me that's for sure. The blacktails I hunt on the island seem to get stupider the worse the weather is. Yep it's crappy weather, but as I said above, if it's raining and blowing that hard, your own noise disappears into the background, so a hardshell works just fine.
 
mrgoat said:
Your one of the very few that realizes that, and it strictly depends on the grade or level of goretex that is used in the garment. Water can be pushed through goretex at 70 Ibs. per sq. in. So if your kneeling or sitting in goretex pants you will notice your butt and knees are getting damp. I do and have owned many pairs of goretex boots and socks, they all leak somewhere. Better than nothing, but they still leak. You want 100% dry, wear rubber boots.
I have good goretex sking pants that you will not get wet in. You can sit on wet chair lift seats all day and slide on your butt half way down the slope and not get wet. But in clothing of this grade there is a trade off and that is breathability. The cloth still breathes but not as well as the cheap stuff. I got this info straight from Gore years ago when I launched a persistent complaint.
We have canoeing dry suits that are Goretex. You can bob around in freezing temp cold water as long as you like and unless you have a leak in a gasket you will be bone dry when you get out. When the water is that cold any leak will tell you instantly where it is. But buy a pair of Goretex hunting pants and sit on a wet stump for half an hour and your undies are going to be wet. Strictly depends on how the garment is made as to what level of waterproofness and breathability your going to achieve.
Click to expand...

70 psi is a depth of water about 160 feet.

Kneeling on something damp pushes the liquid aside, not through your pants. 70 psi would be like kneeling on a child's block... Uncomfortable, and you'd move.

The guy at w.l. gore you spoke to wanted to get you off the phone, so he told you what you wanted to hear.

Skiing is active, generates heat. Sitting is passive, you get cold. Cold and clammy feels wet. Warm and humid doesn't feel as wet, and drives more moisture through the membrane. Plus one is in snow, and one is in rain. That's a big difference.

"Cheap" goretex is generally 2 ply (outer fabric and PTFE), which breathes better but is fragile. "Good" goretex is 3 ply (outer fabric, PTFE, tricot), and doesn't breathe as well, but is durable.
 
Bartledan said:
70 psi is a depth of water about 160 feet.

Kneeling on something damp pushes the liquid aside, not through your pants. 70 psi would be like kneeling on a child's block... Uncomfortable, and you'd move.

The guy at w.l. gore you spoke to wanted to get you off the phone, so he told you what you wanted to hear.

Skiing is active, generates heat. Sitting is passive, you get cold. Cold and clammy feels wet. Warm and humid doesn't feel as wet, and drives more moisture through the membrane. Plus one is in snow, and one is in rain. That's a big difference.

"Cheap" goretex is generally 2 ply (outer fabric and PTFE), which breathes better but is fragile. "Good" goretex is 3 ply (outer fabric, PTFE, tricot), and doesn't breathe as well, but is durable.
Click to expand...

In my experience walking through wet grass is the one ultimate waterproofness test. Your knees and the toes of boots take the brunt. I have goretex pants brand new out of the box leak at the knees and goretex boots with wet feet at the toe area. When the knees of your long johns and the toes of your socks are the only thing wet and its very visible it is kind of obvious. When you sit on a wet stump and the a$$ of your underwear is wet it ain't sweat pal, or that cold clammy feeling either.
Your last line about the Goretex being used in layering for quality is spot on. As far as the 70 Ib. per square in. From your scientific analogy I would surmise water is forced through it at a far lower force then. I have been around for a very long time and I am afraid I do know the difference in wet from the inside as opposed to wet from the outside. When stand up from sitting on a wet stump and your a$$ is wet and you pull down your pants and underwear and your undies and the lining of your pants both have a big wet spot and you didn't pi$$ yourself, it is a safe bet your goretex pants were not doing there job.
I only know things from my personal experiences from spending literally hundreds and hundreds of hours wearing goretex and the like products. The stuff is not what it is cracked up to be, they advertise 100% waterproof, and a large percentage of time it will NOT give you that performance unless you pay the extra for the 3ply such as are in our dry suits. I talked with other guys in the field with Goretex pants and they say the same thing. Yeah it leaks, but it is a lot better than wearing blue jeans.
 
VanIsleCam said:
So is that an invite for next year? I am an ambush fan as well. Gear disagreements nothwithstanding! I am finished with chasing now and only the does roam my property at the moment so if we're short on ground so be it.
Click to expand...

hehehe, a cgn deer bash might be fun to put together , ya never know.
a few of us cgn'ers got together a couple years ago at my place and then took off hunting for a couple days. was a bust but still a fun time.
my hunting partner and I are going to start mentoring new hunters in earnest next season for deer and moose. Hoping to possibly attract a few new hunters as regular members of our crew.

as for waterproof/breathable...... I steelhead fish like a fiend over the winter (feb/march)
I wear a 12 year old Columbia Omni Tech breathable waterproof jacket and a pair of Bare Blackwater breathable waders...... awesome and I come home dry every time. I put the stuff thru serious abuse. mind you the jacket was 400n change and the waders..... I won't even tell you hahaha
 
Everything I wear when I hunt is wool. I do have some rain gear that I bring with me just in case but I primarily wear wool clothing.
 
Cintax said:
Everything I wear when I hunt is wool. I do have some rain gear that I bring with me just in case but I primarily wear wool clothing.
Click to expand...

unfortunately for me, I get skin reactions to any wool product. sucks because some of my hunting buds have some real nice wool gear and it's useless too me :( same with down pillows and comforters ..... can't go anywhere near the stuff. it's synthetic fibers only for me.
 
Now a gap in my experience is never having owned cheap goretex. I've had 2 layer and 3 layer, in every case for in excess of a decade, but I got quality gear every time.

I once got wet shoulders on a crazy rainy trip because my pack straps caused delamination. It was 3 ply goretex. WL Gore replaced the jacket. If you've got a leaking garment, call Gore. Their warranty is the real deal.

I've never bothered with goretex boots because of their horrible reputation for leaking back in the early 90s. The cause of the leaks there seemed to be poor boot construction and mechanical damage.

I suspect mechanical damage every time I hear about leaking goretex.

The beauty of goretex is that it lets a jacket do more than one job. When it's not raining, you can wear it, as its breathable. When it is raining, you're comparatively comfortable for the first hour or so until the durable water repellency quits. Then afterwards, even though the soaked outer fabric has stopped the laminate breathing, it's still rain gear.

In the case of a soft shell and rain gear, you're carrying 2 separate jackets.

As for pants... Well, I actually don't mind non-breathable pants for mountain travel.

For snowy conditions, goretex is the bomb. The dwr doesn't get overwhelmed everywhere as by rain, and you can exert much more without wetting out your base layers.

On balance, I find goretex is absolutely worth it.
 
I have two Goretex jackets, and one pair of pants, but I find them too "swishy" for hunting, so I picked up some relatively inexpensive insulated camo from Cdn Tire. It has a DWR coating, and I've found it to be quite effective. I have sat, kneeled, and even laid down in the snow and it's kept me warm in temps down to about -8C. Only complaint I have so far is that it doesn't block the wind as well as my Goretex. Much more silent though!
 
As 45ACPKing stated up above, a garment for hunting has to be quiet...not just when you rub your hand across it in the store, but also at frigid sub-zero temps, which is where a lot of "quiet" fabrics begin to sound like chocolate-bar wrappers. For most of my hunting, Gore-Tex is pretty useless...no liquid water around at most times that I'm hunting, except for the moisture that the Gore-Tex miracle liner in my coat is holding against my body as its breathability struggles to keep pace with my "sweatability". I'd probably feel differently if I did a lot of waterfowling, but for November deer-hunting and all-winter coyote hunts, warmth and silence are the qualities I need. Even for warmer-weather hunts, I don't find myself in pouring rain all that often...if I hunted a lot on a different planet with different conditions (you know, like B.C....) my preferences would change. Waterproof footwear for me means rubber boots...I've never had a pair of Gore-Tex high-tech boots remain waterproof for an entire season, sometimes not even for an entire week.

Camo and its attendant licencing fees also goes on the list of things I won't pay for, right alongside scent control. My innate contrariness makes me actively avoid unnecessary marketing crap like that. Sorry, but to me, nothing screams "newbie" like an all-matching camo outfit or a "4-in-1" hunting coat. I keep waiting for my first sighting of a guy in a tree with an ozone-generator strapped to the trunk above his head as he communes with nature...:) Camo is okay when you need it, which isn't often. I prefer non-camo stuff, so that if I am travelling to hunt I don't need to have a bunch of duplicate items but can simply wear my hunting duds on the road or on the plane. For day-to-day wear in public, I feel ridiculous in camo.

It's interesting to contrast the ideas of relatively inexperienced hunters (based upon other threads of theirs) versus guys with many years under their belts, as well as to compare ideas from different parts of the country. Different strokes...not better or worse, just different. :)
 
John, I'm not opining about hunting, just goretex as a technical fabric. I may be new to hunting, but I'll hold my mountain experience up against anyone's. I may not have the most, but the amount I've got is respectable.
 
Understood, and I didn't mean any offence. I wasn't specifically referring to your knowledge of GoreTex, but rather more generally commenting on differing opinions regarding waterproofing, camo, fabric choices and other aspects of hunting clothing...as well as other facets of hunting. :)
 
what keeps you warm dry and comfortable, it also must be quiet.

I wear old wool army pants, a carhart jacket with a camo Brit army smock over it, fleece hat. Not much need for rain gear as the rain tends to be frozen into snow flakes when I'm hunting.

If I hunt earlier in the season I will wear jeans and the camo Brit army smock, but I don'e really hunt seriously till it gets colder.
 
Hiking involves constant movements, hunting involves sitting perfectly still mixed in with bouts of very, slow walks in the cold.

I like my goretex, but if its raining sideways you are going to get wet from water collecting on your face and dripping down the collar, so i dont think amything will keep you perfectly dry except for maybe a drysuit.

I like wool for hunting and laminated stuff for other outdoor activities.
 
jjohnwm said:
Understood, and I didn't mean any offence. I wasn't specifically referring to your knowledge of GoreTex, but rather more generally commenting on differing opinions regarding waterproofing, camo, fabric choices and other aspects of hunting clothing...as well as other facets of hunting. :)
Click to expand...

No offense taken, sir :)

My fancy pants are camo, but I couldn't find tall sizing anywhere but that one cabelas pant. In fact, I can't find much of any quiet clothing that isn't either cotton or camo. Wal-Mart had a good year by me, my first year out!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom