No Blood? No Guts? The Glory Behind Columbia’s PF Shooting Shirt

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Columbia's PF Shooting Shirt B&G Superlight

In college, I ran off a streak of more than two consecutive weeks without washing my hair. It began as a bet amongst roomies, but what they didn’t know is I’d have done it without chance at a payday. I enjoy getting dirty.

Now slightly tamed by reality, the partial appeal of hunting and fishing is the chance to be a big kid, get outside and collect grime. My reprieve this summer was a one-week trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This remote, serene location helped cleanse my mind… but that was all it cleansed. While I deteriorated into the dirt bag of the trip, my uncle and two cousins stayed almost scrubbed for surgery in their Columbia Sportswear Performance Fishing Gear (PFG) shirts and pants which featured Columbia’s Omni technologies. Underneath my filth, sweat, sunscreen, mosquito bites, fish gut stains and food stains was an antiseptic mind that was jealous.

Luckily for me, Columbia and Pheasants Forever have partnered for a new addition to Pheasants Forever’s store, the blaze orange Columbia Shooting Shirt B&G Superlight. The “B&G” stands for Blood ‘N Guts, as in Columbia’s Omni-Shield Blood ‘N Guts technology that “resists guts and releases bloodstains, keeping you clean and protected in the wild.”

The one drawback to this Blood ‘N Guts science is that bird hunters wear the rag tag look with a sense of pride. Lucky hunting caps remain charmed by staying a safe distance from the wash room. Outerwear becomes so soiled and rank that panhandling doesn’t appear far off. Like a baseball player with a dirty uniform, the well worn look says “I know how to play the game.” My first trip on assignment for the Pheasants Forever Journal three years ago was to hunt with the Peaceful Valley PF chapter in northwest North Dakota. I’d just acquired a new upland wardrobe, and my biggest fear was the chapter members would take one look at my bright, shiny and blood-less attire and laugh me all the way back to the Twin Cities.

They didn’t, and we had a great time. Hey, the clothes don’t make the man. So I’ll give the new Columbia shooting shirt a try, and try harder to see if I can actually get it dirty.