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Ultimate Prosaic: What The Heck Happened to American Made Hunting Boots?

America made the best hunting boots, a fact known as surely as Einstein was the smartest person ever and Raquel Welch was the hottest babe, ever.

Until now. Now, hunting boots by even the most storied makers like Danner and Irish Setter are made in….where else…China.

Call me confused, but let me ask you, Are the Chinese big on hunting? Do they know how to hunt, what to wear hunting, are they gear hounds, etc. ? My sense, apparently now shared by a lot of other American hunters and outdoorsmen, is that the Chinese really do not know hunting or hunting boots. In fact, the Chinese suck at hunting (although I once watched a video of Chinese soldiers happily picking off gentle, unarmed Tibetans who were walking through the Himalayan snows to escape their China-occupied country, so I guess the Chinese are good at murdering, but that’s unrelated to hunting), if their products are any indication.

The proof that the Chinese stink badly at hunting is that they keep on manufacturing hunting boots, and the hunting boots keep on getting returned by increasingly surly buyers. Label says waterproof. Wallet says you just paid $200 for high quality, waterproof boots. Your wet feet say “These ain’t waterproof.” And back to the store they go.

Some guys (and ladies, too), are returning three pairs of the same model before they give up on either that model or on the entire brand. A lot of people seem to be migrating toward spending no less than $300, and easily up to $375, on a pair of hunting boots that they know will not fail them when they are alone, a long, long way from civilization, and dependent on their footwear to get them around and back home at the end.

Does three hundred and fifty bucks sound like a lot of money for hunting boots to you? Holy smokes, it sounds like a lot of money to me. A pair of fancy dress shoes by the best makers rarely go for that amount, even on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Something is afoot here, friends, and it is not pretty.

On the one hand, a lot of hunters are kvetching about their low-quality boots online and in product reviews. So hunting as a sport is clearly taking a hit. On the other hand, Chinese boot manufacturers are hazing hunters, forcing many of them to spend a small fortune on the only American-made hunting boots, thereby restoring comfort to their feet and honor to our crumbling nation. I am at that point myself, having purchased, worn, and returned several expensive pairs of boots by the most storied names in boot making history.

The question is, with boots this expensive, are guys going to begin comparing boots at camp? That will make me feel quite uncomfortable. The last thing I want is to be associated with effete city slicker behavior. It’s like pollution in a pristine environment. It’s a Chinese plot to destroy hunting, one way or another. God help us.