Review: Wood and Metal Leather Gloves

The Geier kangaroos in Maine, wet and still great....

Our last review of the week is of the Geier leather gloves made for and sold by Wood and Metal. As we said in a post about 1.5 months ago, we were introduced to these gloves by C.H. Judson, owner of Wood and Metal, a retail site we hadn’t heard of at the time.

Since we’re always looking for good/better gloves, since C.H. wanted us to try them out and since he’s a bird hunter, we took a couple pairs to Maine. Glad we did.

Our (Jay’s and Brendan’s) hands are roughly the same size and we’ve swapped gloves before to see what we like, but this time that didn’t happen. Jay brought the Wood and Metal gloves, took them off a couple times early on to give some new L.L. Bean gloves a try, but after that never took them off.

Here’s what he says about them.

My New Favorite Gloves

Actually, I’ve never had favorite gloves, and now I know why. Up ’til now, I’d take at least 6 pairs of gloves with me on any hunt – because they’d get too wet and because a pair here or there became useless. Meaning they wouldn’t dry out or they’d be too warm/not warm enough on a particular day…you know the drill.

My 6 pairs were about half the pairs I’ve bought over the last few years. Went something like this: At any hunting, fishing, gardening or home improvement store, I’d try on every pair of gloves I thought would be decent for bird hunting to see if they’d fit. The best-fitting ones I’d keep and use. Those that didn’t make the grade got tossed or were retired to the shed.

In other words, I was never happy with my gloves. But that didn’t bother me. Didn’t know you could be happy with gloves, and Brendan was in the same boat. They were just tools, things you had to have on your hands.

Well, I’m here to tell you that has changed for me. These American-made, sold-by-size, leather gloves have opened my eyes. They’re so comfortable I didn’t want to take them off – seriously! I couldn’t believe it either.

I took two pairs with me on our recent 8-day Maine hunt: the Geier goatskins and the Geier merino wool-lined kangaroos. After sizing my hand and ordering that size – a new experience for me – I tried both pairs on at home before I took them with me. For sure they fit better than most gloves I’d tried on. It wasn’t love at first try, but I liked ’em enough to take them along.

The goatskin gloves in action....

The weather in Maine was pretty mild – too dang mild! So I started with the goatskins. The best way I can say it is that by the end of the day they became part of my hands, like extra skin.

They quickly molded to my hands, and that plus the fact that they’re leather meant no issues at all with releasing safeties or pulling triggers. Also no issues with brush, thorns and other nasties getting through to my hands. I wondered about that because these gloves feel thin – not that they are, they just feel that way. But no issues.

Between covers we usually take off coats, packs, hats and gloves, and chuck them in the back of the truck. I kept forgetting to take my gloves off. Didn’t need to, and didn’t want to, meaning I didn’t feel like I had something uncomfortable on my hands.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not sensitive to how gloves feel (or wasn’t). They just used to be tools to me, nothing more.

Also loved the way the fit allowed me to clean birds with my gloves on. Again, not a big deal to do it bare-handed, but it was cool.

Eventually the weather got cool and wet enough to wear the merino-lined gloves. We’re huge fans of itch-free, warm-but-not-too-warm merino, always wear it for our base layers, so I was curious how it’d feel on the hands. Easy: great.

And it performed on the hands just like it does on the rest of the body. Maybe that’s a “duh,” but it was a discovery to me. Merino, if not too thick, seems to manage the body’s temperature at a comfortable level, like it self-adjusts. That’s what these gloves did, even when wet.

They were a bit too warm on a couple of slogs, but in fairness they were too warm to wear on that day. Just put them on to test them and you know how it is when you’re a little chilly getting out of the truck but 10 minutes later are a bit too warm.

Both pairs seemed none the worse for wear after drying in front of a roaring fire. Probably not recommended for leather, but….

The bottom lines are:

> Yes, I’d recommend these gloves to every Serious hunter and am doing so here. Bear in mind that I hunted neither pair straight for that week-plus, but no issues at all so far, and now I actually have favorite gloves. Also have not worn them in a major downpour, but at this point I’m thinking that finding waterproof gloves is less likely than finding bigfoot….

> Are they worth the money? Yes. The goats are $42 and the kangaroo/merinos are $110. It’s the ol’ “you get what you pay for:” I’ve wasted twice that amount in useless gloves. It’s like adventure gear from companies like Patagonia: so expensive you have to have a conversation with yourself before buying it, but once you have it you love it.

Get ’em at WoodandMetal.com (where you might get sucked in by other cool stuff) or at Wood and Metal’s Facebook page.

[Full disclosure: As you can see from the ad at the top right of this page, Wood and Metal is now an advertiser on SeriousBirdHunting.com – the opportunity for which arose only after Jay fell in love with the gloves (fell in love with gloves?!) in Maine. In other words, no good/no ad and vice versa.]

Tags: Featured

Category: Gloves, Wood and Metal