Making My Perfect Early Season Jacket

OneGunTex

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Apr 16, 2021
Messages
198
Location
Texas, most of the time
We'll see how this goes. I'll update as it progresses or maybe nuke the whole thing if it goes sideways.

This has been my favorite hunting jacket for many years. It is relatively light, fleece lined perfect for 35-65*F, water resistant. Great for early duck season, mobile/upland walking, spring bear or turkey, even early deer season with a good baselayer or vest. It's camo for bird hunting. Good pit zips and I like the chest phone pocket. I think I paid $60 for it.

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But it's not perfect. For starters, faded realtree camo just turns into a dark blob. More importantly, the DWR coating is gone and re-waterproofing a polyester softshell never really works. And on that note, it doesn't have a hood. Typically I hate hoods. Love that this jacket doesn't have one.... until it starts raining and the jacket's good but your head is wet and it sucks. My favorite rain jacket has a tuckaway hood. It's awesome:
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I started another thread asking about jackets with removable or roll-up hoods, and there aren't any good options. And most of the recommended jackets on the Slide cost $300. Yikes. But then I found it.....
 
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Dickies hooded flannel shirt jacket. Cost me all of $35. It's the right kind of "camo" that will do the job but i can still wear around town. Cotton shell, so I can wax it. Polyester lining for a little insulation. Has a hood, but it's sewn inside the collar. And the pockets suck. But we can fix that. Here is the plan:

1) Remove hood, add snaps, re-sew under the collar on the outside.
2) Remove the patch pockets and sew in a cellphone-sized welt pocket.
3) Add pit zips.
4) Wax the whole thing.

My wife runs the sewing machine. She's my secret weapon. Luckily, she needs a project right now. Will update soon.
 
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