Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Wool Pants

I've gone almost totally Polar Fleece. I buy cheap, light wool slacks at the second hand store and wear Polar Fleece over the top of them. If it's real cold, I add a light Gore-Tex rain suit underneath the Polar Fleece. Works great, it's light, and dry's fast. Plus, it's quieter than wool. Lot's cheaper too.

Thanks for all the replies. I do appreciate them.

I take mine outside and spray them with a hose and let air dry. That's all they get.

I use a medium weight pair of wool bib overalls with long legs that I can blouse for moderate temperature, say above 10 F., but a heavy set of Woolrich pants and coat for colder temps. The bibs are more comfortable and conveinient to me. I use the coat during some warmer times, but I have to be real careful not to over heat if I'm moving.

I wear both the pants and the bibs at 10F

Be careful with surplus military pants. They seem like a great deal but I had a pair that the threads had dry rotted on. It was one season and the pants literally came apart at the seams.

YMMV

I have tried every sort of woolen pant known and NOTHING I have ever seen comes close to Filson's whipcords, especially worn over Icebreaker merino bottoms. If, I were restricted to wearing ONLY ONR type of pant in the BC bush, year-round, it would be these, no question.

I have River's Edge and scads of other bush pants to enjoy, I WEAR Filson's almost every trip and only wish they still made the medium grey colour for sheep hunting.

Kute, you and me both... Filson Whipcord! I wear them alone or layer Midweight / Expedition weight Capilene under mine... I also have Surplus BRD heavyweight wool pants (with side pockets) but prefer the Filson whips for 95% of my elk hunting.

I like the Filson whipcords too for light pants, but mine won't fit anymore.....

For heavier duty stuff I'm using the stuff below:

King of the Mountain

Sleeping Indian Designs

Have had stuff from both of them for a long time and it wears really well.

MM

Gawd, and I thought Filson's were pricey!!! Gorgeous stuff, but, not really practical in weight or design for backpacking and that is why I prefer very loose Filson's over longjohns.

I would think that this gear would be the cat's azz for sitting on a horse packing out in really cold weather and on a deer stand as well. The synthetic has not been made, and, IMO, never will be, that equals really good wool for hunting.

Yea, those are very expensive duds. I got into KOTM years ago and still have all the stuff. For me, it scratches like a dog with fleas and doesn't cut wind. Perhaps they've put a wind bloc in the new stuff; but I've do wear it but never against the skin.

I've found that unless there's -15 and lower temps I don't need heavy pants and that the Filson whipcords with silk or other undergarment does well for me. They work through a remarkably wide temp range and with their smooth texture don't scratch me...and they are tough and strongly constructed.

Gdv

Filson whipcords.....yep!

Jeff

The Filson Double Mac is another quality wool piece of clothing but at 24 oz/yd and with multiple layers this is a heavy garment and is almost too much for me if moving at more than a leisurely pace unless it's way, way below 0 degrees.

While it's very well made it doesn't quite work for me in the layering concept.

Gdv

I won't own anything that I have to dry clean. Shrinkage is the problem with wool. It can be washed but you have to use cold water and KEEP THEM OUT OF THE DRYER. I've read that tumbling causes far more shrinkage than heat, but I can't explain why. I use the gentle cycle with cold water and mild soap like Woolite. The clothes don't come out looking crisp and new, but they're hunting clothes so who cares. If you're nervous about the washer, hand wash them in Woolite and cold water and hang dry. It works fine.

Dick

Filsons are the best that I've seen but I haven't spent the coin to keep in them since I "outgrew" my old pair. I have some mil surplus but they are so heavy that for many years I've used thrift store wool pants only for hunting and much of my backpacking.

As mentioned by others I like the thin, high quality dress pants of virgin wool best, cut roomy. They give wonderful lightness and freesdom of movement when climbing up steep ground, stepping over logs, etc. I cut a tiny hole in the hem of each cuff and insert a light bungee cord into the cuff of each leg, tied just tight enough to be loose on my bare leg but tight when stretched over a boot top. It is like built in gaitors that keep snow and debris out of the boot top. It keeps the pant cuff tight on the boot.

Add long johns or an over pant if it gets really cold.

I wash and rinse in a cold cycle and hang them to air dry after the spin cycle. No clothes dryer. I think the jostling tumbling off dryer action causes the tiny scales on the wool fibers to ride up on each other and catch, shortening and shrinking each twisted thread and hence the entire fabric. Sometimes if it is only one pair of pants I hand wash them with woolite in a sink. If they get torn up on a hunt, I burn them in my last campfire. They are so cheap that they are disposable. Dry cleaing would cost more than the pants did at the thrift store. Of all the garments that I wear, pants take the most beating: brush, rocks, wet, barbwire fences, etc. Either pay for something bombproof like Filsons or go with the disposables.

I buy the thin bungee cord by the foot or meter at either REI or Mountain Equipment Co-op. It is somewhere in the 1/16 to 1/8 diameter range, like a skookum rubber band. Slide it in the hem of the pant cuff till it goes all the way around and tie it to itself with barrel knot or two interlocking overhands, etc.

Wool rocks. It really does.

I have a jacket and pants made of the River's West stuff. THAT is an amazing fabric. Silent, waterPROOF, warm, soft, stretchy, extremely durable. It's like a microfleece that's also waterproof.

-jeff

I love wool, film cameras, and black powder, but we can do a lot better today. We have synthetics that, from the standpoint of cost, versatility and performance leave wool in the dust. JM.02.

I'll have to call Utter BS on that.

I've owned and used Synthetic Fleece/Pile since the late 1970's so I'm a Dyed in the Wool (grin) fan of synthetics. I can emphatically agree with Kutenay though, no synthetic has yet replaced quality wool on the legs for hunting purposes.

Fleece and pile pants under a shell are fine for alpine mountaineering and the like but wool on the legs trumps all for hard-core hunting.

I used to believe wool was king for hunting pants.Until I bought a pair of rivers west pants.Built in gator and vented.10x's more versatile then either pair of filsons I own.

I'm gonna +1 on the Rivers West pants, even though I already mentioned them once. They are amazing. I've pounded on mine for 4 seasons now and they are as new (functionally). Silent, oderless, waterproof, warm, stretchy, built like a tank. Awesome, and expensive. I also bought one of their jackets and it's pure bliss in variable but heinous conditions. You can get glopped on all day by freezing rain and snow and be warm and dry and confidant.

In pants, my next choice afterh the RW gear would be my surplus wool pants, the good ones, the ones I ski in. They are really great. In truly miserable conditions they are less of a "shell" than the RW stuff is. OTOH, they are more breathable. I have spent many hours in those pants in really ugly weather (hey, that's when the snow is best!) and they have never failed me.

Chalk me up as a big wool fan, AND also a Rivers West fan.

-jeff