Britney Starr Reviews Irish Setter Ladyhawk Boots
Rolla, MO –-(Ammoland.com)- What’s the first thing you look for in a pair of new hunting boots?
Is it price, fit, style, waterproofing, or amount of Thinsulate?
Personally, I look for fit.
The reason for this is mostly because I have been wearing men’s sizes of hunting apparel and boots for the past 10 years. I started hunting when I was 12 and “back in the day” finding anything hunting related that was specifically for girls/women was unheard of. I have spent the past couple of years steadily replacing every item in my hunting closet with a product that is woman specific.
In gearing up for my spring turkey hunting road trip, I was determined to find a great pair of women’s hunting boots. A friend recommended that I try a pair of Irish Setters (the boots, not the dogs) and I promptly did some online research. Their website boasts that they “don’t do shrunk-down man boots,” but have tailor-made women’s fit boots. That alone sold me and I decided to put them to the test during my three-state turkey hunt. I purchased their Ladyhawk knee-boot with 1000 gram Thinsulate Ultra (making them easily warm enough for deer hunting) and ScentBan technology (great for controlling stinky feet odor). Because I procrastinated on ordering them, I received the boots in the mail just two days before my dad and I left for our road trip. I was nervous that I would have some “breaking in” to do, so I brought a back up pair of old boots along also.
Now, I’m not a huge fan of lace up boots, which played a factor in my ordering the knee boot with a full side zipper. The first time I put the boots on with my hunting pants shoved down inside them, I noticed that the zipper was very stiff and I could not get them zipped up. I made sure the pants were not bunched inside and asked my dad to help me zip them. I pushed the boot together; he zipped, said a few swear words, and accused me of having fat calves. It was 4 a.m. – and, I don’t think he had his coffee yet.
I immediately noticed how lightweight they felt. I thought that with having a knee boot and there being so much material they would be heavy, but that was not the case. It was wet, muddy, slippery, and cold the entire trip but my feet stayed warm and dry. My boots also spent the night out on the front porch of our cabin during a rainstorm (Thank you, Dad, for putting them out there!?) and they were quite damp the next morning. I wore my back up pair of boots for a day but the Irish Setters dried out surprisingly quickly.
About halfway through our trip the tightness in the zipper and material around it started to loosen up, but after about a solid month of use they were still hard to zip. Aside from the zipper issue they are easy to walk in, lightweight, comfortable, fit specifically for a woman, and for $169.99 these boots are durable enough to last many hunting seasons. Just make sure they don’t get put on the porch in a rain storm.
For more information visit the Irish Setter website. ~Britney Starr
For more gear reviews, visit the Gear Court at Women’s Outdoor News.: www.womensoutdoornews.com/category/reviews/gear-court/
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The Women’s Outdoor News (The WON) features news, reviews and stories about women in the outdoors. An online e-zine with frequent updates, it also features the “WON Guns,” women bloggers such as Julie Golob, Marti Davis, Sara Ahrens, Nancy Jo Adams, Molly Smith and others that write about the shooting sports and/or hunting. The WON’s Gear Court — where outdoor gear gets pushed to its limits — also appears in Ammoland weekly. RSS Feeds and a free email subscription are available at the site. Visit: www.Womensoutdoornews.com