Hunting in extremely cold weather can be a tricky affair. Not only do you have to summon the superhuman levels of patience that hunting generally requires, but you have to do so while borderline freezing your extremities off.
Thankfully, however, there are things like heated hunting gloves that allow you to stay warm through the hunt.
Unfortunately, not all heated hunting gloves are created equal, and any experienced hunter will tell you that your choice of gloves can hinder or facilitate your hunting success. So, what do you need to do to be a successful hunter in extreme weather?
For one thing, you need to choose the right kind of heated hunting gloves that suit your specific needs. Here are some tips on how to go about doing that and some reasons why using these heated gloves could be the best decision you make.
Also Read: How to Start Backpack Hunting
What Are Heated Hunting Gloves?
Any time you go outside during winter, you need some kind of protection from the weather. For the most part, we wear layers of warm clothing to keep us from freezing. However, since gloves aren’t often as thick as the layers of clothing we heap on our bodies, they need a different type of mechanism to keep your fingers warm.
Heated hunting gloves, like most heated gloves, are heated in one of three ways:
- Thick layers of warm material
- Batteries
- Chemical packets
Each type of heated glove has its own advantages and disadvantages. The gloves heated by batteries or chemical packets tend to work best, albeit for a limited time, which means you will either have to recharge the batteries or replace the chemical packets.
Let’s take a closer look at the three types of gloves to try and determine which one is best for you:
Insulated Hunting Gloves
An insulated hunting glove is one that doesn’t use either batteries or chemical packets to keep you warm. These gloves are simply designed with special materials such as polyester, leather, and silicon to provide the necessary chill-proof construction necessary for keeping you warm.
One of the best gloves in this category is the Under Armour Men’s Scent Control Insulator 2.0 GORE-TEX Gloves, made out of 72% Polyester, 25% Leather, and 3% Silicon. These gloves are typically 100% waterproof and quite breathable. It features added insulation, which is water-resistant, lightweight, and extremely warm.
Chemically Heated Gloves
These gloves have a pocket along the back of the hand, which holds a disposable warming packet as the heating element. This chemical warming packet heats up as soon as you remove it from its original sealed package. The best packets can keep your gloves heated for about eight hours before you need to switch them out.
Electric Heated Gloves
These are rechargeable gloves. While they don’t need you to carry a supply of warming packets with you, electric heated gloves need to be recharged from time to time. The gloves have a small battery compartment on the back, which allows you to charge the gloves whenever the batteries get low.
Don’t worry; they have built-in mechanisms to ensure that you don’t shock yourself when wearing them. Some of the best electrically heated gloves even allow you to choose the temperature setting.
While all these options are awesome, the truth is that you are probably going to end up buying an insulated hunting glove as opposed to a chemically or battery heated gloves.
The simple reason behind that decision is that you want to control as much of the environment as possible as a hunter. Chemically heated and battery-operated gloves bring way too many variables into that environment. An insulated glove is much easier to scent control.
Tips on How to Choose the Best Heated Hunting Gloves
Not all heated hunting gloves are created equal. With that in mind, here are some tips that will help you choose the best one for your specific needs:
Size and Fit
There isn’t a universal sizing chart for things like gloves. That’s why you find most people wearing differently sized gloves on both hands. The thing about hunting gloves is that they need to be practical, which plays a big role in their size and fitting.
Take, for example, a hunter using a gun and one using a bow and arrow. These two people are not going to be comfortable with the same type of glove.
The hunter using the gun has to consider their trigger guard. Does the glove they are wearing have thin enough insulation on their trigger finger, insulation that can easily and comfortably fit into the trigger guard without a struggle?
While the hunter using the bow and arrow might not have this problem, they still need hunting gloves that allow them to “feel the draw and the shot,” all the while protecting their fingers from frostbite.
Size and fit come into play when you think about all these angles. For the most part, you need to get hunting gloves that fit snuggly but not too tightly. Your fingertips should touch the ends but not quite. The wrist area should extend just far enough to allow you to tuck it into your jacket or sleeves.
Material
Hunting doesn’t call for extremely thick and bulky gloves, which reduce hand and finger dexterity. That, however, doesn’t mean that you go for extra thin gloves either. Find gloves that have a windproof shell made out of a polyester blend or nylon. The interior lining should be made out of something soft and warm such as fleece or wool.
Waterproofing
This is an absolute must for hunters who are often touching the undergrowth or other vegetation types that might get their gloves damp. Go for gloves that feature materials such as sealed leather, nylon, or silicone, which give the gloves their waterproof capabilities.
The downside with this is that your hands might get sweaty and clammy. The best manufacturers combat this by waterproofing the palm side and using ventilated fabric on the back of the glove.
Touchscreen-friendly
Your hunting gloves might need to be touchscreen-friendly. Because we bring so much technology with us on the hunt nowadays, from high-tech scoped rifles to game cameras and even our phones…most of which feature touchscreens, you are going to need gloves that allow you to operate these apparatuses comfortably.
The other alternative is having to take your gloves off every time you want to use any of the many touchscreen-enabled gadgets you have on you.
Grip and Durability
Suffice it to say; your hunting gloves need to have excellent grip. You are going to be holding on to some kind of weapon, after all. Whether you are firing a rifle or operating a crossbow, your gloves need to provide you with an excellent grip. That’s why you will find most hunting gloves have leather on the palms.
Additionally, highly durable gloves tend to be designed and manufactured using excellent material, which means that you will be getting a high-quality hunting glove, something that will probably have all the above features anyway. So going for highly durable gloves kind of helps you narrow down on a high-quality product.
While everyone has their own style, some people like to “feel” the shot, and that means using their bare hands or extremely thin gloves. The truth is that you won’t be firing your weapon every second of the hunt. There will be hours, even days, of waiting during which time you need to keep warm. High-quality heated hunting gloves will help you do that as well as help you remain comfortable.
