Giving the Gift of the Outdoors

Men are hard to shop for. Outdoor men are downright impossible.

With Outdoor Guy's birthday looming on the horizon, I'd been contemplating what to get him this year. He's a great gift giver, somehow sifting through the mountains of information and conversation I inundate him with to find the one or two offhanded statements I make about some treasure I'd like to have. For Christmas, he bought me a new iPod docking station to replace my broken one, and this great gold necklace. The perfect combination of practical and romantic.

I thought I'd return the favor and find the absolute most perfect birthday gift. After all, the boy has endured six months of endless wedding conversations about tuxes and flowers and pew bows and caterers. I wanted to give him something really cool because he's been so great about the perpetual prenuptial planning. He foiled my plan to buy him an iPod by buying one himself with his tax return money. So for the last several months, I've been trying to listen closely and compile a list of things he mentioned he wanted someday: an ice auger, snowshoes, a trail cam, a fletching tool (whatever that is), a bow case or a new sight, among other things.

I decided on the fletching tool because after a friend loaned him a book on bow hunting, he's started to get all amped up for hunting season and pour through archery catalogs on a nightly basis. So I sat down to my computer, signed on to the Cabela's site and went to order my betrothed the perfect birthday gift. I was so going to win future wife of the year award!

My keyword search on the World's Foremost Outfitter site turned up 83 results. There were fletchers, fletching strippers, something called a fletching jig and a weather vane. Hmmm, I knew we didn't need a weather vane, but which fletching thing-a-ma-jig had he said he wanted? And what was the brand? I recalled something about making sure it was a right-handed something-or-other, and it had a weird name that I swore I'd remember when I saw it again. I started reading the product descriptions, hoping the details would jog my memory.

"This is an all-metal, self-supporting fletching tool that will accept any size shaft and lets you fletch straight, offset, right- and left-helical. A permanent magnet assures uniform placement of all feathers and vanes. A self-centering nock receiver can be adjusted for feather spacing of three-fletch, four-fletch. Includes one clamp, instructions, and wrenches. Optional nock receiver available for fletching three-fletch, cock-vane down."

Or not...Was that even written in English?

So, maybe I'd just buy him a trail camera instead. My search for a suitable trail cam yielded 50 products to pick from, some of them costing in excess of $600. That kind of money was not part of my economic stimulus plan, that's for sure.

I asked aroudn the office, but no one seemed to have any good advice. In the end, I broke down and asked Outdoor Guy. "If a fletching tool magically showed up in the mail, which one would you want it to be?"

Not very subtle, but it got me an answer and it got him a new toy to help tide him over to hunting season. I also learned more about arrow building, and I learned a valuable lesson to help ensure future marital success...

Next year he's getting a sweater.