Gifts for Duck Hunters Who Will Spend Christmas Morning in a Blind | Bluegrass Gifts

Christmas Falls in the Middle of His Season

Most gifts for duck hunters get unwrapped by a man who has already been up for six hours. In most of the country Christmas lands in the middle of duck season, so there is a fair chance he spends the morning in a blind and walks in at ten, wet to the knees, wanting coffee and a dry pair of socks.

The best gifts for duck hunters replace what the season wears out, like waterproof gloves, wool socks, hand warmers and a wader patch kit, or they give the camp itself a name on the wall. Skip calls, decoys and anything for the gun unless he has named the exact one he wants.

The keepsake we would put on that list is our Custom Camp Sign, a carved gift for duck hunters and the crew they hunt with. The sample reads CAMP WALKER, EST. 2015, with GOOD FRIENDS · GOOD FIRE · GOOD TIMES along the bottom and a carved pine at each end. Every line on it is yours to write.

This guide follows his season as it really runs: what wears out by January, the 4 a.m. start, the dog, and the camp. Season dates are set state by state, so check your state's rules before planning around a weekend.

Gifts for Duck Hunters That Replace What Wears Out by January

By the late season a duck hunter's gear has been soaked, frozen, dragged through mud and slept on by a wet dog. He puts off replacing it because he will be back out Saturday, which makes it the easiest win under the tree.

What wears out by January: run this list past his blind bag, or past the buddy who hunts with him.

• Gloves. Wet by the time the decoys are out, and wet all morning. Two pair of waterproof insulated gloves and some thin liners beat one expensive pair.
• Socks. Wool or a wool blend, a whole bundle. Cotton goes cold the minute it gets damp.
• Hand and toe warmers. The air-activated kind, by the case, not the two-pack.
• Wader leaks. A pinhole shows up as one cold, wet sock. A wader patch kit and a boot dryer for the mudroom fix most of the misery.
• The headlamp. Batteries fade fast in the cold. A rechargeable one with a red-light setting lets him sort the decoy bag without lighting up the blind.
• Decoy cord and weights. Lines tangle, fray and get cut on skim ice. Spare cord and a bag of weights get used every trip.
• The face mask. Lost by Christmas, or living under the truck seat. Buy two.
• The coffee bottle. The bottle survives; the cup lid cracks when it rolls off the tailgate. A new insulated one that pours with one hand.
• A dry bag. For keys, phone and wallet, the three things that most want to go in the water.

You do not have to know the gear to buy it well: check the size on the tag of the pair he already wears. Notice what is missing from the list, though. Nothing on it is anything he would keep.

◆ From the Workshop: The two pines on this sign are carved in the same pass as the letters, from the same board, so nothing is glued on to work loose. Before a design goes to the machine we check it stroke by stroke, because a line thinner than about a tenth of an inch carves shallow and sands away. Here the narrow places are the pine trunks and branch tips, so both are drawn wide enough to carve clean at all three sizes. The carve cuts through the finish into clean grain, so the pines read in bare wood, the same as the name.

Gifts for Duck Hunters Who Leave the House at 4 A.M.

A morning in the blind starts long before the shooting: the dark kitchen, the drive, the walk in under a decoy bag, the long wait before anything flies. Gifts for those hours get used every trip.

The drive. An insulated travel mug that fits his cup holder and opens with one gloved thumb. A waterproof back-seat cover, because the dog rides home wet. And a gift from your kitchen: a dozen sausage biscuits wrapped and frozen, so breakfast is ready when the alarm goes off.

The blind. A padded cushion for a bench that has been wet since November. Small binoculars for watching birds work the far end of the marsh. If he hunts from a boat, a life jacket made to wear over a heavy coat is the most useful gift on this page and the one he is least likely to buy himself. Cold water is no place to learn a lesson.

The dog. Every crew has one member who never complains about the cold, usually while shaking water on everybody. A close-fitting dog vest for icy retrieves, a bin of old towels for the truck, a raised dog stand for a flooded blind and a first-aid kit for cut pads all get used. We wrote a piece on the science behind a duck dog's retrieve, if the dog is half the reason he goes.

February, When the Decoys Come Home to the Garage

When the season closes, the gear comes home: decoys in mesh bags along the garage wall, waders drying in the mudroom. A gift that is not gear has one advantage over everything above: it does not wear out.

That is where a camp sign earns its place. Every duck crew already calls its spot something: the pit, the back slough, Pop's place. Most crews keep a ritual after the hunt too, and we wrote about the tailgate tradition on a Kentucky marsh, dogs and all. A camp sign turns a handful of people and a lot of cold mornings into a place with a name.

Our Custom Camp Sign carves CAMP and the camp name in rugged capitals with a pine at each end, the year the crew started underneath, and a motto across the bottom. You type all three on the product page and watch them appear on the board, and a real person reads every order before anything meets the saw, spelling checked against what you typed. It also settles what the crew gives the one who owns the camp, cooks breakfast and pulls the boat.

Motto lines a duck crew would actually say, each under 40 characters:

• KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN: the caller's favorite line
• COLD COFFEE · WET DOGS · GOOD FRIENDS: the sample's rhythm, duck-camp version
• DECOYS OUT · COFFEE ON · DOG READY: the whole morning routine
• IN THE BLIND BEFORE DAYLIGHT: for the first crew in
• THE DOG DOES THE REAL WORK: true at every camp
• EARLY MORNINGS · LATE BREAKFASTS: for the camp where the cook is the host
• A BAD DAY HERE BEATS A GOOD DAY AT WORK: for the one who saves vacation days for December
• WADERS DRY · DOG FED · STOVE LIT: the camp rules, in order
• SAME BLIND · SAME CREW · EVERY YEAR: for a crew thirty years running
• WORTH EVERY COLD MORNING: for the quiet one

Pick the size by the wall. The Small 16" x 3.5", at $30.00, fits over the mudroom bench where the waders dry. The Medium 24" x 5.5" ($55) suits the wall over the camp table. The Large 30" x 7.25" ($80) is for the long cabin wall where the whole crew eats, or the garage gear wall. A sawtooth hanger comes installed, so it goes up flush on one nail. For a camp lit by one lamp, Dark Walnut, Kona or Ebony gives the bare-wood letters the most contrast.

We are a small Kentucky shop with 5,000+ customer reviews, and we carve this sign on a CNC machine in our shop, on one face of a solid board: pine for the stain finishes, poplar for the paints, never MDF. It ships free in the U.S., and any two signs or wax melts earn up to 20% off at checkout, handy if the crew wants one for the camp and one for the host's garage.

Ask What He Lost This Season, Not What He Wants

Ask a duck hunter what he wants for Christmas and he will say nothing, or name a shotgun. Neither helps. The better question, asked in passing over Thanksgiving leftovers, is what he lost, broke or soaked this season. The answer will be specific: the glove that went in the water, the headlamp that quit on the walk in. That is your shopping list.

What sounds like a duck hunter gift and usually is not: calls, decoys and anything for the gun, because every hunter has opinions about those; camo clothing, unless you know the pattern and the size; and anything with a cartoon duck and a pun on it. If he also farms the ground the ducks winter on, we wrote a piece on Christmas gifts for farmers that still get used in January.

And if his crew calls it the lake place or the shop instead of a camp, the rest of our personalized signs carve the same way, from a lake house board to a garage sign, so the sign can use the word they already do.

Put the hand warmers in his stocking and the wool socks in his boots. Then type the camp's name and the year the crew started into our Custom Camp Sign for a duck camp that has always had a name and never had a sign, try a motto or two from the list, and pick a stain dark enough to read by one lamp at four in the morning.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to get a duck hunter for Christmas?

Get a duck hunter something that replaces what the season wears out, such as waterproof gloves, wool socks, a case of hand warmers, a wader patch kit or a rechargeable headlamp, or something he would never buy himself, like his camp's name carved on the wall. Skip calls, decoys and gear for the gun unless he has named the exact one. For the keepsake, our Custom Camp Sign starts at $30.00 and ships free in the U.S.

Gifts for duck hunters who have everything?

For a duck hunter who has everything, give the good version of something he burns through every season, like a bundle of wool socks or a case of hand warmers, or something that marks his place instead of his gear, like the camp's name, the year the crew started and its motto carved on a board. Hunters who own every piece of gear rarely own anything that says the camp is theirs. Our Custom Camp Sign carves those three lines, written by you, with a pine at each end.

What can you put on the custom camp sign?

You write all three lines of the custom camp sign: the camp name that follows the word CAMP, the year the camp was established, and a motto across the bottom, while the two carved pines are part of the design. You type the lines on the product page and watch them appear on the board before you order. Sizes run from the Small 16" x 3.5" at $30.00 to the Large 30" x 7.25" at $80, in 20 hand-applied stain and paint finishes. It ships free in the U.S.: 2-7 business days in the shop, then 2-5 days to reach you.