So my 8 year old Hell's Canyon puffy jacket is no longer quite so puffy (I wash the crap out of my clothes and hunt a lot). It's led me to look into hunting clothing for the past week or so. I went so far as to drive to the local Sitka retailer and remind myself why I've never bought a set, and finally just picked up a L and XL fleece quarter zip. Hopefully I'm good-to-go for the 22 degree cold front we've got incoming this weekend...
But in the process I've been reminded of something that's bugged me off-and-on for a while. Reading clothing reviews, everybody is really, really, REALLY terrible about specifying under what conditions their clothes are performing. "Cold," "late season," "windy," etc...all mean VERY different things to different people. Example...
If I tell you some medium-weight polypro base layers, a fleece or two for a mid layer, and a windbreaker/rainjacket get me through, "the coldest days of late season," that may leave a lot of you shaking your head. But if I tell you it gets me through a sunny day in the with lows in the 20s and highs in the 40s with a 5-10mph wind...that's different. It's the Gulf Coast, not Vermont or northern Wisconsin.
Personal comfort is perhaps intrinsically subjective, but we figured out how to accurately measure weather conditions pretty precisely a long time ago. Temp, wind speed, cloud cover, and humidity is all free information that most of us look at regularly anyway. Duration of the sit, activity level, and whether or not you avoided sweating help a little too. Maybe let us know if you keep the house set at 68 or 74 too...I'm a 68er only because my wife won't let me park it at 60.
But in the process I've been reminded of something that's bugged me off-and-on for a while. Reading clothing reviews, everybody is really, really, REALLY terrible about specifying under what conditions their clothes are performing. "Cold," "late season," "windy," etc...all mean VERY different things to different people. Example...
If I tell you some medium-weight polypro base layers, a fleece or two for a mid layer, and a windbreaker/rainjacket get me through, "the coldest days of late season," that may leave a lot of you shaking your head. But if I tell you it gets me through a sunny day in the with lows in the 20s and highs in the 40s with a 5-10mph wind...that's different. It's the Gulf Coast, not Vermont or northern Wisconsin.
Personal comfort is perhaps intrinsically subjective, but we figured out how to accurately measure weather conditions pretty precisely a long time ago. Temp, wind speed, cloud cover, and humidity is all free information that most of us look at regularly anyway. Duration of the sit, activity level, and whether or not you avoided sweating help a little too. Maybe let us know if you keep the house set at 68 or 74 too...I'm a 68er only because my wife won't let me park it at 60.