Gander Mountain Brush Buster Upland Vest

Upland Bird Vest Pros and Cons

I pheasant and quail hunt over 50 days a season and have not yet found a replacement upland bird vest for the one I have had for over 30 years. The cons with this vest...Read complete review

I pheasant and quail hunt over 50 days a season and have not yet found a replacement upland bird vest for the one I have had for over 30 years. The cons with this vest make it on par with all the other currently available upland vests designed for ease of manufacture rather than hunter use. The vest closes with a plastic zipper that experience has shown with other vests that zippers simply do not last. Heavy brass ones do better than plastic. Snaps or buttons last longer than zippers. The front two large patch pockets do expand enough to allow for shells and gloves. The shell holding flap, 12 shells each pocket, may be lifted out of the pocket for easy shell loading into the elastic loops. The pocket flap magnetic closure is useless and often flips up to stick to the upper magnet installed to hold the flap open. The front loading portion of the game does have a high enough bottom seam to prevent anything in the game bag such as a leash from falling out. It has an additional snap to further close it off. For quail the front loading game bag is sufficient to move the birds to the rear of the bag for easier load carrying. However, the seam limiting opening from the front portion of the game bag tot he rear prevents pheasants from sliding back. The rear of the game bag has a flat bottom that does not contain the bird lad at the center back as would a game bag that was a lower, deeper, or cured downward bottom back bag. The vest is made of a tight material that appears to be water proof, an entirely useless feature in any vest. Vests are worn as a cool piece of clothing and this one is too warm and the material does not breath. The added mesh interior lining is simply worthless in all regards except to get hung up on anything that protrudes such as when placed behind the seat in a truck. The rear water bottle pockets are well sized to hold one liter water bottles readily available from the grocery store. The problem with the water bottles is the same as for the rear entry to the game bag, both are too high. The rear game bag can only be loaded by other than the one wearing the vest or by taking the vest off. To insert a water bottle may be done with some practice with one hand. To remove the water bottle requires two hands. one hand to hold the bottom of the vest down while the second pulls the water bottle out. The water bottles are more easily carried in the front of the game bag if willing to put up with the front pulling weight load. This vest comes only with orange making it less useful for pheasant hunting and certainly no good for plains grouse hunts. This vest is no better than any other one that is out there and not built for a hunter who if he could would build one to suit bird hunting.