Glove Love

I hunt in gloves.  I don't care if its 100 degrees like in a September dove hunt or its bone chilling cold, I wear them. It's for several reasons.  For one, California's wild terrain is rough.  There are plants that will stick, poke and hurt you.  I know this for a fact as I once swinging my shotgun tracking a quail when my hand swung right into a cactus.  It was not fun picking all those cholla out of my hand.  Much of upland hunting in Southern California revolves around rocky or steep terrain.  Hands get beat up pretty good when sliding or climbing in those areas.  Also snakes are everywhere (even in our suburban neighborhoods).  While gloves would do little to a snake bite at least it provides some protection, if only psychological.  Obviously gloves are also made for protection against the cold.

In the mail today, I received a some of the finest gloves I've seen.  My everyday hunt gloves are a pair of deerskin leather gloves from Filson.  I had two pairs of these great gloves but lost one pair a few seasons ago.  Luckily the pair I lost was starting to fall apart as one of the finger's stitching was coming apart.  My current pair is starting to do the same. So  I started looking for a replacement, I considered just buying another pair of Filson's.  But while searching I discovered another pair from Geier Gloves Co. out of Washington.  When I first discovered these gloves I figured they were probably the OEM for Filson.  On a plus note these Geiers gloves are way cheaper than the Filson ones and the sizing is much more varied for a better fit.

Due to their pricing I bought three pairs, two unlined and one wool lined (and another lined pair for my father).  The Filson are currently running about $80 for an unlined pair.  I bought two different Geiers unlined pairs of just under $40 each and $65 for the wool lined pair.  All these pairs are made of supple deerskin here in the USA.  I can not express enough how nice these gloves are.  They are soft and tacky enough to hold an uncheckered wood stock without any problems.

The lining is merino wool so its warm and soft to the touch.  It's also not too bulky so working the back trigger on double trigger shotgun is not a problem.  Since all the shotguns I hunt with use this set up, its perfect for me.  When ordering a lined glove make sure you order at least a half or full size bigger than your unlined glove.  Geier does not adjust for the bulk of the lining when it comes to sizing.  In other words if you are a size 9 (like me) the lined glove will have the same dimensions as the unlined.  The extra bulk of the lining will make it a tighter fit so it will require you to go size up.  I ordered a 9.5 for the lined gloves and it seems to be a perfect fit.

These came just in time as the old man and I plan on hitting the valley again in search of waterfowl.  With a little bit of luck we'll be coming home with some good tasting birds.