Sep 15, 2023 By Dave Bates for The Observer-Reporter newsroom@observer-Reporter.Com 5 min read

Beware: This week’s column is more like a rant.

Stay with me through the following paragraphs for I need to vent. I have grown tired of reading labels that claim “waterproofedness,” if that is even a word. If it’s not, it should be. I think I just made it up because spellcheck is nagging me. But if boot manufacturers can make the mystical claim that their boots are indeed waterproof, then I am entitled to the occasional departure from our Webster’s dictionary.

The term “waterproof boot” is largely subjective. Sort of like attending a “fun business meeting” or searching for a “tank that gets good gas mileage.” Waterproof boots exist only in the land of the unicorn and fairy dust. There are two kinds of waterproof boots… those that haven’t leaked yet and those that will.

So what’s with all the negativity, this early in the season? I hate wet feet. I know it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be walking the sloughs for pheasants and I’ll find that first briar hole in my new rubber boots. One minute I’ll be footloose and fancy free. The next, I’ll be slogging back to the truck, one boot filled with water, cussing under my breath. It wouldn’t bother me so much, but I’m basically a cheapskate at heart and hate spending good money on something that doesn’t last. Oh, I don’t mind a good top-shelf purchase once in a while because I know that my unborn grandson that I haven’t met yet will carry that game bag with him to gun for grouse long after I have departed this earth. He’ll look down at it, give a little thank you to Pap for passing on something so cool and say, “I wish I’d have known that old coot a little better.” Nothing like planning for the future. I can still hear my Uncle Jim touting the moniker, “Might as well have the best.”

When it comes right down to it, there are basically two schools of waterproofedness. I belong to neither but participate in the rituals of both religions. There are those drunkards who believe that by applying magical potions to the exterior of a leather boot they will remain high and dry throughout the season. My brother, Glenn, subscribes to this theory. They slog on layer upon layer of Sno Seal. They dab on bee’s wax and chant like the Monks of the Abbey of St. Ottilien. (Check them out, they’re quite cool.) But to no avail. Still their boots leak. In a vain, last attempt at achieving dryness, they spray on coat after coat of Scotch Guard and other silicon sprays as they perform the pipe ceremony. And for the first 15 minutes of the season they are dry. Then, saturation.

Suckers!

These folks are all liars. They could be dumping a pint glass full of water from their boots and they’d swear they were dry as dirt.

The other school is the rubber boot gang. They believe that as long as no water gets into one’s knee high boot, from the outside, then one’s boots are indeed waterproof. Their logic does not factor in that they have soaked their feet with sweat to the point of dishwater feet but they will hear none of it. They cry foul, any challenge to their waterproofedness. They are dry and that is the end of the discussion. During a lull in the hunting action they can be found hiding in the cellar, patching and repairing holes in their muck-style rubber boots so that no one can see. They have saved the patch kits from their neoprene chest waders and make repairs in secret, never admitting that their state of “dryness” has been compromised and their waterproofedness is an ongoing love affair, rocky at best.

There is also a group of moderate fence sitters that adhere to the L.L. Bean hunting shoe, which has a rubber bottom sewn to a leather top. These are also equally useless. Mine are size 12. I own three pairs of rubber boots, two pairs of leather hunting boots and one pair of Bean boots. I am the Paris Hilton of hunting footwear, according to my wife, and I wear my badge of honor with pride. If we could truly allow ourselves to admit it, we could confess that what all the rituals of the church of waterproofedness really do is make us feel better. We tried. We failed. We hunt and fish anyway and we enjoy it, all season long. I can admit to being wet in any boot, by any manufacturer, under any field condition, for varying amounts of time. No matter the game hunted nor the season of the year, you can find me afield … and most assuredly, soaked to the big toe.

Dave Bates writes a weekly outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter. He can be reached at alphaomegashootingsolutions@gmail.com or newsroom@observer-reporter.com