As you read in the last post, we pulled the plug on Turkey Season a little early this year. Before I put everything away and start thinking ahead, I first want to thank everyone for the kind words, thoughts, and prayers for KYHillChick. The surgery is tomorrow. We’re are hoping for the best. She is on 24HourCampfire.com, so you can email her over there or leave comments here. She has been really appreciating it.

I also want to throw out a few items of gear that stood out this year. This season was all about staying warm and dry.

First off, I want to say that the Guide Gear Heavyweight Base-layer from SportsmansGuide.com is still superb after 20 seasons. I wait for the stuff to go on sale and pick a little here and there. My sons and I all wear it.

Right now the Union suit is on sale:

If you wait, the other stuff will go on sale.  I normally wear a crew necked, long sleeve top and the bottoms. I start wearing this stuff below 40-45F depending on the wind.  Normally, I may wear it as a bottom layer in the pre-season and maybe for a few days in the first week of  Spring Gobbler.  It is also my base layer through most of Deer Season.  I have enough sets to last me through a week of hunting.  I have pieces that have been out for 17 seasons straight. It’s warm, durable and cheap.  I’ve also found that, just using the Shamanic Baking Soda Method, these Poly-pro items don’t retain any human stink.

While we’re on the subject of SportsmansGuide.com, I’ll mention the Dutch shooting mits I scored over the winter.

I liked them so much I ordered a second pair for Angus.  They have an extra shooting finger.  They are flat-out the warmest mittens I have ever owned.    The extra finger lets you work a trigger or manipulate a cell-phone.  The first pair I bought had extra snow covers with them, but for our hunting needs, this is all we’ll need.  They have tie-offs at the back, I will run a length of paracord between them and then run that behind the liner of my parka, so I won’t loose them. I have not had mittens rigged in this way since 2nd Grade, but the system works.

Lastly, I was digging around on Amazon.com and found this on sale for less than $9:

It is a combination cell-phone recharger and rechargeable handwarmer.  Right now, the price is $23 bucks, and I have seen these devices priced above $35.

I was glad I had this along this season.  Normally, in colder weather, I will use some sort of handwarmer.  I wear cotton bibs over my base layer and the handwarmer goes in the chest pocket so it sits right over my heart.  My blood gets warmed, and then that gets pumped out to my extremities.  I figure that a handwarmer, used in this way, saves me about one layer of clothing.

In the past, I’ve tried them all.  In the early days, I used a Jon-EE and lighter fluid.  I gave it up when I realized the Naptha stink was probably scaring the deer.  However, in deer season, I have gone through a mess of those chemical handwarmers, and in turkey season, I go back to the lighter fluid.  The warmest were those burning sticks in the red metal case. Wow! You talk about warm!

When I saw the rechargeable electric units start showing up, I wondered how well they did.   However, at $35, it seemed like an expensive experiment.  At less than $9, I knew I couldn’t miss. The unit I bought, the VShow, has 5200 mAh capacity. At the low-heat setting, I was plenty warm for 4-5 hours, and had enough juice left to recharge the smartphone.  The high setting was too hot. The added benefit of this unit is that I can turn it off while I am out walking and then turn it on when I hunker down.

I don’t mean to tell you to rush out and by the VShow unit. It’s back up to $23 as of this writing.  I’ve only used it a dozen or so mornings, so I cannot speak of longevity.  However, these rechargable handwarmers are not such a bad idea, and this unit worked better than I expected.  There are a bunch of units on Amazon right now, so there is plenty of room for experimentation.

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