What IS the best bushcraft Jacket?

[Rorschach]

Yes, I do know layering and also use it. However, there are lots of situations during the warmer half of the year where there aren't any layers to take off (wearing just a shirt and the shell) and unbuttoning or -zipping only offers so much help. Very few membrane jackets feel anything like comfortable on the bare skin if you do not have anything beneath. Ventile feels great though, so you can even wear just the shell if it rains and is warm and/or you are moving or exercising

Furthermore, a large part of the summer time in northern Finland/Russia/Canada/Sweden/Norway (based on actual field work in those countries) you really do not want to be outdoors without one, or preferably two, layers of long sleeve shirts/jackets. Mosquitoes will get through one layer of most fabrics with ease and you often also have to deal with blackflies and biting midges (a.k.a no-see-ums, Ceratopogonidae in Latin). So the breathability of the top layer in rain or no rain becomes important, unless you're staying put in the camp or something like that.

My work has forced me to spend considerable time in the worst mosquito & blackfly areas you can find. So I am not joking or just repeating something I read, it's based on personal experience, unfortunately :-D

 

[pteron]

I still love my bushcraftUK ventile jacket, excellent design with much thought gone into the smaller details. Love that is is cut in the shoulders for reaching down rather than up, the big pockets can hold my Gransfors hatchet and folding saw and the drying material in the handwarmer pockets is ace.

 

[Billy-o]

Yes, I do know layering and also use it. However, there are lots of situations during the warmer half of the year where there aren't any layers to take off (wearing just a shirt and the shell) and unbuttoning or -zipping only offers so much help. Very few membrane jackets feel anything like comfortable on the bare skin if you do not have anything beneath. Ventile feels great though, so you can even wear just the shell if it rains and is warm and/or you are moving or exercising

Yes, I totally agree with this, and am also a fully paid up advocate of the advantages of Ventile and other types of DWR treated, waxed etc cotton ... as well as goretex. I agree that both materials have their own proper areas of competence and limitation. My point was that working up a sweat isn't a bad, avoidable or even undesirable thing if you are dressed right for the climate.

I slightly prefer a shorter jacket over the many smock-length options there are and have been looking at the old US army M41 .. there is a version being made in ventile by UF Pro ... I'd buy one if it weren't for the branding on the back of the collar. So, I might just see if any of the re-enactor sites pedal a good one. Might give it a squirt with nikwax or rub a bit of wax on it

(EDIT ... just seen that At the Front have one and Snowpeak have something similar, though even more entertainingly priced)

 

[Tonyuk]

Baselayer, lightweight fleece, windproof - This does me fine for hiking well into the negative numbers in this country. I prefer something like a running windproof which have a mesh back panel where a daysack sits, helps keep the sweat down. Perhaps a more substantial smock if its for a few nights out.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/trail-running-windproof-jacket-id_8488402.html

Often if i'm walking fast enough a baselayer on its own is fine, if its baltic but not overly windy or wet then a baselayer and thin fleece is ideal;

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/forclaz-50-mens-fleece-black-id_8219987.html

If its just a bimble in cooler weather then a baselayer such as a wicking t-shirt and windproof smock is ideal imo;

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/run-dry-mens-t-shirt-print-id_8381793.html

https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/sarma-windproof-smock/34637

 

[Janne]

I do not own one piece of Goretex. I prefer cotton, impregnated or not.

I wrar the Fjällräven Grönlands jacka .

Yes, I do know layering and also use it. However, there are lots of situations during the warmer half of the year where there aren't any layers to take off (wearing just a shirt and the shell) and unbuttoning or -zipping only offers so much help. Very few membrane jackets feel anything like comfortable on the bare skin if you do not have anything beneath. Ventile feels great though, so you can even wear just the shell if it rains and is warm and/or you are moving or exercising

Furthermore, a large part of the summer time in northern Finland/Russia/Canada/Sweden/Norway (based on actual field work in those countries) you really do not want to be outdoors without one, or preferably two, layers of long sleeve shirts/jackets. Mosquitoes will get through one layer of most fabrics with ease and you often also have to deal with blackflies and biting midges (a.k.a no-see-ums, Ceratopogonidae in Latin). So the breathability of the top layer in rain or no rain becomes important, unless you're staying put in the camp or something like that.

My work has forced me to spend considerable time in the worst mosquito & blackfly areas you can find. So I am not joking or just repeating something I read, it's based on personal experience, unfortunately :-D

I personally wear a loose fit, well washed cotton shirt when I am in Scandinavia summertime. When it rains - on with the Fjallraven!
Mosquitoes do not manage to get to your skin if the shirt is loose fit, and it feels cool and airy too when you are hot!

Personally I hate tightly fitting clothes, as I am used to the feeling of air on my skin.

If your grandparents are still around, ask them what they wore when they were young.
Let us know, it is interesting!
My granddad wore loose worn cotton shirt, with a Wool jacket, some sort of rain repellant fabric.


One thing I would love to know:
Sweating has one very important function, the evaporation of the water cools the skin. Wearing the wicking fabrics, is the skin cooled as efficiently?

I do not know if there has been any research done.

My personal "feeling" is that I feel hotter in those fabrics.
I wear wicking underlayer when I have my survival suit on when I fish in Lofoten.

Design of the jacket:
Lots of pockets, the larger the better. No zips, but buttons on them.

To buttons placed where the shoulder straps and hip belt goes.
It is not easy to find a jacket that is designed with backpack wearing in mind!

I have a Barbour that has a wonderful, large pocket in the lower back. Very useful! That is the only jacket I have owned with this useful feature.

 

[MrEd]

I do not own one piece of Goretex. I prefer cotton, impregnated or not.

I wrar the Fjällräven Grönlands jacka .


I personally wear a loose fit, well washed cotton shirt when I am in Scandinavia summertime. When it rains - on with the Fjallraven!
Mosquitoes do not manage to get to your skin if the shirt is loose fit, and it feels cool and airy too when you are hot!

Personally I hate tightly fitting clothes, as I am used to the feeling of air on my skin.

If your grandparents are still around, ask them what they wore when they were young.
Let us know, it is interesting!
My granddad wore loose worn cotton shirt, with a Wool jacket, some sort of rain repellant fabric.


One thing I would love to know:
Sweating has one very important function, the evaporation of the water cools the skin. Wearing the wicking fabrics, is the skin cooled as efficiently?

I do not know if there has been any research done.

My personal "feeling" is that I feel hotter in those fabrics.
I wear wicking underlayer when I have my survival suit on when I fish in Lofoten.

Design of the jacket:
Lots of pockets, the larger the better. No zips, but buttons on them.

To buttons placed where the shoulder straps and hip belt goes.
It is not easy to find a jacket that is designed with backpack wearing in mind!

I have a Barbour that has a wonderful, large pocket in the lower back. Very useful! That is the only jacket I have owned with this useful feature.

Classic Barbour design, it’s called a poachers pocket and on the ‘proper’ barbours are lined to prevent blood soaking your coat.

My father used to use one for real, he was a bit of a man of the land and actually fed us food he foraged, poached, caught or grew.

 

[Rorschach]

Janne, I have several smocks that are pretty much exactly what you describe: four big front pockets with buttons, a large poucher's pocket at the lower back (the pocket is divided into a couple compartments). Two smocks are made by SASS from their ventile equivalent fabric (one olive, the other desert DPM camo), one smock is an issue SAS smock of cotton gaberdine (black color). I am more than happy with them and how they perform

The SASS smocks are not single or double ventile, but hybrids: the hood and shoulders are double ventile while the rest is single.

 

[Billy-o]

There aren't many things I regret, but selling my SASSkit ventile on here a few years ago is one of them I have a PCS one on the way from Varusteleka, but I really like the look of the simplified new Smock 2. All gaberdine, no net lining, less pockets, big poacher's one at the back, smaller hood. MTP only thoe

The vintage SAS canoe jacket in Ventile I saw a few weeks ago kind of took my breath away. But I also just saw this ... didn' know til recently that the Navy used Army camo mainly.

This ventile thing looks great: https://saundersmilitaria.com/archive/near-mint-british-royal-navy-ventile-deck-smock-anorak-jacket

Keep an eye on Hilltrek ... they are in the process of researching a ventile canoe jacket it seems

There is a really good Canadian Navy deck jacket on ebay ... but the seller wants $300 for it. Must be a collector's piece, I guess.

 

[Billy-o]

Rorschach ... yes bugs are weather in their own right ... did you ever look at or try Snow Peak's Insect Shield clothes. I have only heard of them by rep ... got nothing else

They are on sale at the moment

 

[Robson Valley]

Decades ago, we wore "Shoo-Bug" jackets. They looked like green cheese cloth with tape seams.
Remember those? permeated with pyrethrin. Any bug that landed on me died. Simple as that.

There isn't a single bush craft jacket just as there is no single pieces of plumber's kit.
I tend to judge all outer (non waterproof) clothing against Carhartt as the gold standard.
Next piece is cool/cold late autumn gear. I expect it will be a XXL Carhartt Canyon design.
They don't ship this model into Canada but I've figured out how to fake it.

 

[Rorschach]

Billy-O, thanks, I wasn't familiar with the Insect Shield garments but took a look now. They may work pretty well I suppose but why on earth have they chosen dark colors for insect shield clothes? Mosquitoes, blackflies use mainly CO2 from our breath and our heat signature to find us. The darker your clothes, the stronger your heat signature. The next bit is my speculation only but they may be also evolutionary keyed in to seek darker targets because most of their mammal prey tend to be dark colored (bears, moose, elk, deer and so on).

Here's an informative thermal image on that: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-a-mosquito-get-attracted-towards-black-colours
It's the same reason why horseflies are often attracted by car tires on a sunny day.

 

[Nomad64]

Billy-O, thanks, I wasn't familiar with the Insect Shield garments but took a look now. They may work pretty well I suppose but why on earth have they chosen dark colors for insect shield clothes? Mosquitoes, blackflies use mainly CO2 from our breath and our heat signature to find us. The darker your clothes, the stronger your heat signature. The next bit is my speculation only but they may be also evolutionary keyed in to seek darker targets because most of their mammal prey tend to be dark colored (bears, moose, elk, deer and so on).

Here's an informative thermal image on that: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-a-mosquito-get-attracted-towards-black-colours
It's the same reason why horseflies are often attracted by car tires on a sunny day.

Rorschach, I don’t think it is speculation - the tsetse fly (the African cousin of the horsefly but carrying trypanosomiasis parasites which cause sleeping sickness) is controlled by fabric traps with a blue background and a large black centre dosed with insecticide (and sometimes chemical attractants) which mimic the cattle and large herbivores which they feed on.

http://www.who.int/tdr/publications/documents/tsetse_traps.pdf

In an entirely unscientific study, I can confirm that the occupants of a dark green Land Rover Defender suffer far worse in tsetse country than those of a silver Land Rover Discovery.

 

[Billy-o]

I remember watching a BBC programme about the invention of those tsetse-fly sheets. Fascinated me, kind of in the same way that reading an account of the Shackleton expedition did.