Hunting coats.

[CajunBass]

I picked up a cheap "hunting coat" yesterday. It got me to thinking and remembering those old brown canvas "hunting coats" almost everybody wore when I was a kid (50-60's).

They were as I said, brown canvas, had two big pockets for your hands to fit into, and two bigger ones for shells and such. Most had elastic shotgun shell loops sewn in, and a padded area on the shoulder called a "recoil pad" (yea, right). They had rubber lined "game pockets" in back, with openings to put your kill in. Some were lined with flannel or horseblanket, but most I remember were just plain canvas. They were almost always WAY too big for the wearer...or way too small.

Usually there were matching pants with reinforcing on the front for "brush busting."

I haven't seen one of those things in years. I guess the last ones I did see had blaze orange on them.

I'll bet they cost more than whatever I paid for one back in 1967 too.

 

[chas08]

I've got one made by Filson that I treasure. Just the smell of it reminds me of days gone by.

 

[Bailey Boat]

I'm very fortunate in that I have the one my Grandfather wore for many years when I was a "shortstop" as I was called in those days..... I only wear it on special days and guard it carefully.....

 

[Sav .250]

I`ve got a pair of those old canvas,"brush busting" paints in the closet.
Got them in the early 50`s and they saw lots of action. There wasn`t a briar patch around that was a match for them. Noisy as all get out but tough as nails.
Now retired, they enjoy life on a hanger in the closet.

 

[CajunBass]

I meant to mention, but forgot. "Jones" style hunting hats. Those sort of pointed bill, turned up on the sides and back hunting hats. They usually had a pair of ear muffs tucked up inside that no torture on earth could ever get anyone to put down.

 

[JohnBT]

You can still buy them new. Or you can google the net for old ones.

www.hookedonvintage.com/home/hov/page_3053

Size - medium
Price - $52

"A unique and hard to find vintage Sears hunting jacket. It is a light weight, very dense canvas game coat in a boxy cut, shell loops inside the front pocket. Tagged as a size medium by Sears Sports Center, dark brown corduroy collar, license loops and two large game bag pockets on the back. A great looking jacket, perfect for fall to spring!

Condition: Excellent"

 

[CajunBass]

I figured it wouldn't be long before someone came along and told me you could still buy them.

I had done a search last night and found some for a price that frankly surprised me they were so low (about the price you quoted). I wasn't really looking for one, just gathering some wool.

Thanks John. That one looks about like the one I bought from Sears about 1967 when I ordered the first gun I ever bought with my own money (a Sears/Stevens double 12 ga). My mother ordered the gun and coat from Sears by telephone, and they were delivered to the house in those long ago days before the GCA-68. The gun and coat are both long gone now. The coat lost somewhere in a move after a divorce, the gun sold to a friend.

 

[shaggy430]

Carhartt still makes similar coats and pants.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Google "Barn Coat" and you will find stuff that you want from a bunch of outdoor clothing firms. The special ones with loops for shells are fancified barn coats. Carhart makes nice INSULATED ones, as well as bib overalls of the same stuff

LD

 

[MCgunner]

Gotta be camo for me. I've been using the same M65 field jacked for 20 years and it's no where near worn out. I'm a waterfowl guy, so camo only need apply. Don't have to be brand name patterns, but I need to blend with the scenery.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Up our way the blight brown coats and overalls go with the light brown cornstalk stubs surrounding the pit blinds.

LD

 

[MCgunner]

Down here, it's quite green all winter in the marsh. We have Spartina grasses in the marsh, mostly, tall reedlike grasses as well as Spartina alterniflora, a bunch grass that's a pain to try to walk in. It's green all year. It rarely freezes down here, but when it does, doesn't seem to bother this stuff. Too, I hunt public marsh. There are no blinds of any kind. I'm often standing all morning in tall Spartina grass. I really need a marsh stool to sit on. My back hurts when I get home. I'm getting old.

Anyway, a general woodland camo seems to work just as good as any designer stuff like "marsh grass" or whatever. I've got a mesh 3D jumper that's friggin' awesome, look like a bush in the marsh. It came with a hood, too, I wear under a camo boonie hat. SIL calls it my "ghillie suit". But, I don't like wearing it OVER my hunting coat on colder mornings. It makes getting into coat pockets a pain. I wear a big fanny pack outside my camo and under my waders now and I like to put the jumper on OVER the waders, but sorta hard to get at shells when I have it on. Anyway, standard woodland camo seems to work fine for duck hunting. The 3D stuff is good, though and I wear it in teal season and warmer mornings when it's too warm for a coat, which we tend to have even in December and January.

Those traditional coats are cool, but in the marsh they're sorta out of place. More for upland guys, I reckon, or hunting deer in a box blind. I love it when I see guys all decked out in camo and they're hunting in box blinds. ROFL!

 

[chas08]

In '66 when my dad first took me Duck hunting at the ripe old age of ten, There was no such thing as camo at our house. We just wore our oldest dark green and/or brown clothes. The Jones style hat was a common thing back then, along with olive drab army field jackets and hip boots instead of waders. It seems we killed just as many ducks then, as I do now with a new set of the latest marsh grass camo. I still like to do a solo "no camo allowed" hunt a couple of times a season with each of my Model 12's. (call me nostalgic) I seem to do just as well without the camo as I do with it, if the Ducks are there. And +1 on the old "Woodland" camo pattern that the military once used. For our area of Texas it is one of the finest, most versatile patterns I've ever used.

 

[hammerklavier]

I'd be afraid to wear one myself. There are crazies out there that will fire at anything brown that moves.

 

[countertop]

I got an LL Bean Field Coat that I was wearing today.

 

[kimberdad]

I had a canvas hunting coat with the game pouch in the back when I was a kid. I'll never forget that coat. Especially when I put a (dead) squirrel in the game pouch. A few minutes later I had a resurrected squirrel scratching for freedom up my back, scared the mess out of me. I had that coat for many years and it served me well, finially outgrew it. Wish I had one for my son.

 

[MCgunner]

Well, I started duck hunting in 1967 and mom got me a "Ted Williams" camo coat from sears a year later which I treasured. My old man wasn't a hunter and my grandpa was too old by then to go duck hunting, or at least that was his line. I was mentored on doves and deer, but with ducks and geese, I was on my own. I'll never forget those dozen Victor mallard deeks that Christmas, too! Before that, I was blowing up paper bags for decoys. Read about it in an Outdoor Life article and, ya know, it worked pretty good until the sun came up good. LOL!

I'll keep my camo, though. Ducks have good eyes. Don't matter if you're rich and can afford to hunt out of a blind on private land, I reckon. I have some inheritance I need to go check out, up the coast about 100 miles and sits right next to Brazoria NWR. My dad and uncle used to lease it to duck hunters, but I've never seen it. Can't get there by land, takes a boat or kayak. I could build me one of them rich man's blinds out there. it's 42 acres, been in the family for 80 years near abouts. My grandfather was land commissioner of Brazoria County and bought that, and a bunch of other land my old man was able to sell off, for taxes owed. This chunk of land is pretty much marsh and nobody wanted to buy it, so they were stuck paying taxes on it all those years. I've been trying to figure out where it was for 30 years. LOL Now, my cousin has a GPS coordinate on it.

Heck, in a good blind, you could get away with bright hunter orange.

 

[chas08]

Wish I had one for my son.

There are several on ebay right now. Just type in "vintage hunting coat" most were reasonably priced to start.

 

[qajaq59]

I pheasant hunted in one of those for years. They had a nice game pocket in the back. Mine was handed down and finally just gave up the ghost back in the 70s. Boy, those were the good old days when you could hunt most every field in the county and no one cared.