Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Breaking Down A Bounty o' Boots

Interesting and detailed analysis.
I bought a pair of Crispi Colorado GTX several months ago. Wore them on a six day elk hunt. So far, best boots I’ve ever owned.

The guys Ill be working for in AK, Alaska Rivers Wild Adventures, tried Crispi this season, sheep, moose, bears. From what I heard pretty much a thumbs up. So I'll put them on the list for when the Han Wags give up.

Waterproof is overrated. Much the way Goretex is a joke. Carry socks for the time that they start leaking. If you have true waterproof, they are called waders or xtratuffs for me.

Keen non water proof with the right socks have worked well.

Excellent write up! Thanks for taking the time to do it!

Thanks for an excellent review.

However, your review brings up a question. Do boots made out of cordura uppers (like the Crispi Wyoming) give up any 'durability' or 'ankle support' to boots made with leather uppers (like the Crispi Dakota)? According to Crispi website the Dakotas weigh less than the Wyomings. So its not weight.

Thoughts?

From the Dakota page on CrispiUS.com, you can scroll through the pictures to find a video where they talk about it having a leather rand vs a rubber rand on the Wyoming. Apart from that and the use of suede in place of cordura, they seem pretty much the same.

FC

Update:

I ordered in a pair of Crispi Wyoming’s in 10.5 W, just to make sure I had the sizing correct. As it turns out, they worked even better for me than the 11’s, so the larger ones went back today. This is the first time a boot ever worked in my standard shoe size: heretofore, I’d always needed to go a 1/2 size larger.

Black Ovis didn’t have the 10.5’s in stock when I decided to try them, but they set me up to be reminded by email when they arrived at their warehouse. The system worked fine, and it was even 1 week earlier than promised.

On the downside, the new boots only had 3/4 rubber rand, which didn’t encapsulate the heel. The salesperson was surprised when I asked about it. The full rand was part of the reason I selected this particular boot, but I didn’t deem it to be a deal-breaker.

Now to get out & put some miles on ‘em.

FC

Great way to order boot s !
I'll do this process next time instead of buying boots then trying to be happy with them .
Per the Lowa boot sounds like the Banff model i have - like wearing concrete blocks on my feet .
Thanks for taking the time to post this .

Fantastic write-up, FC, and should be helpful in a few months.

Inquiring minds wanna know, Joe...where ya going in these new kickers???

I did maybe 15 miles around Big South Fork over New Year’s. No hunts officially planned, though there’s still an outside chance for Spring Bear in Idaheaux, Coronavirus notwithstanding...

My dream is to do a bighorn hunt, but I’m not sure that would come together during the life span of these particular boots.

FC

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You missed his Experience..

Nice Review..

Follically Challenged;
Good morning to you sir, I hope the weekend has been treating you acceptably and you're well.

Thanks for the review, it was as noted by others, very well done.

When you did this in 2019 or as best as I can recall about then, I picked up a pair of Zamberlan Vioz GT boots which are a tad shorter/lighter than your 2nd place ones. My normal hunting boots for the years previous to that were some Canadian made Prospectors which didn't last, then Danner Hood Winter Lights which were resoled and are still yardwork boots, then finally some taller Meindl boots which are great but stiff and heavy.

One thing I should mention up front is that my boot size is 8.5 and I'm 150lb unloaded so likely 170lb chasing stuff in the mountains without a rifle.

This past season a good friend was drawn for one of two "any ram" California Bighorn tags on the mountain behind the house, so we beat that mountain flat until he was able to take a very nice ram. I also wore them picking morels on the burn on the same mountain this past spring, so they got a pretty good workout in 2022.

The biggest problem I have with the shorter boots was they get full of spear grass seeds. I do have gaiters and could have put them on, but we had an unusually warm fall this past year even for here, so for instance the day he shot the ram it was 88°F when we got back to the rig with his ram in the bags.

Anyways the Zamberlan boots stood up fairly well for the past 4 seasons, though the past 2 was when I really started to use them more.

Seeing where they're beat up, a rand wouldn't hurt for that, but then it's likely they'd be stiffer and heavier if they had one.

While I wasn't sure about the pronounced heel they have, I really love that now and down hill is much more "predictable" with that heel I find.

Thanks again for your review, hopefully the small review I've added is useful as well.

All the best.

Dwayne