Tips on Hunting Footwear and Apparel

Steven Rinella Jun 27, 2018

I firmly believe that gear doesn’t make the hunter. On that premise, it’s a known fact that unsatisfactory gear can absolutely ruin a good hunter’s hunt. I’ve compiled a list of tips on hunting footwear and apparel that any hunter can benefit from.

Boots
Feet ruin hunts. Cold feet, blistered feet, wet feet, tired feet, I’ve seen dozens of hunts either compromised or cut short because someone had a foot problem.

Luckily, most of these issues can be avoided if you choose your footwear carefully. A versatile small game hunter should have a number of high-quality boots at his or her disposal, so that it’s easy to keep your feet happily in the field. If I had to limit myself to just three pairs of footwear for small game hunting, here’s what I’d choose:

From left: Xtratuf neoprene knee boots (wear these when things get wet and muddy; they are the most comfortable rubber knee boots that I’ve ever worn); Schnees Wilderness 6-inch hiking boots (for general wear; these work well in dry or semi-dry conditions ranging from hot to near freezing); Schnees Hunter II pack boots (the best boots for active, cold-weather hunting).

Duds
The apparel for a small game hunter can be as simple or complicated as you choose. When I was a kid, my brothers and I would often head out squirrel or rabbit hunting in the same clothes we wore to school. We’d just throw on our game vests and hit the woods, with no thought to technical fabrics or camouflage.

This casual approach isn’t perfect for everything, though. Trying to hunt mid-winter waterfowl in a marsh would be disastrously cold if you were wearing nothing but school clothes; and trying to bust quail out of a thorny briar patch while wearing your school duds would leave you looking like you’d lost a prolonged and nasty battle with a family of bobcats.

When thinking about apparel, it’s wise to consider the basic concept of layering before getting into specialized apparel that you might need for certain types of hunting.