Need birthday present ideas ---->

**MOHSHSIHd** · 07-05-2007, 07:12 PM

So my dad is gonna be 55 on the 10th....he really has everything, so buying him a cool gift can be hard sometimes.

He is into hunting and fishing, and he likes books about survival and adventure along the lines of 1800s arctic crossings and shit like that...

just spout out any random ideas you might have.

thanks

**schuss** · 07-05-2007, 07:37 PM

build him a survival kit (rudimentary pole etc.) with your own two hands. Nothing says you care like time and effort invested.

**FrankZappa** · 07-05-2007, 07:48 PM

'52 Harley Panhead in mint condition with two Buffalo nickles brazed on each side of the tank.

Blue

or Red

jpg

**schindlerpiste** · 07-05-2007, 07:49 PM

Either pearl or amber Buck custom folding hunter's knife. They are facking beautiful

Shot at 2007-07-05

**AsheanMT** · 07-05-2007, 07:52 PM

Hookers and Blow!

**RootSkier** · 07-05-2007, 07:54 PM

Buy him a bottle of whatever gets your mom drunk fastest. Score!

**72Twenty** · 07-05-2007, 07:56 PM

I just bought myself a Marmot Vortec softshell at Sierra Trading Post for over 50% off (only $159) and it is very niiiiiice. Your dad needs one too.

**mushmouth** · 07-05-2007, 07:58 PM

Plan to do something he loves, together. It's the gift that gives back 30 years from now.

**dbp** · 07-05-2007, 08:10 PM

I haven't read it, but I was browsing Amazon the other day and came across this book that is survival/adventure related. It looks good - NYT bestseller, National Book Award winner.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

You have to like any story that features cannibalism.

Book Description
In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex--an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

In the Heart of the Sea tells perhaps the greatest sea story ever. Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy. At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.

"Nathaniel Philbrick has taken one of the most horrifying stories of maritime history and turned it into a classic. This is historical writing at its best--and at the same time, one of the most chilling books I have ever read." --Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

edit: more info from BBC

**cj001f** · 07-05-2007, 08:12 PM

Originally Posted by mushmouth

Plan to do something he loves, together. It's the gift that gives back 30 years from now.

Seconded.

Even something as simple as a nice dinner.

**MOHSHSIHd** · 07-05-2007, 08:38 PM

Originally Posted by mushmouth

Plan to do something he loves, together. It's the gift that gives back 30 years from now.

Well, I already planned on going fishing with him early on the morning of his birthday, and that book sounds great dbp....

**Tippster** · 07-05-2007, 08:40 PM

Get him something that you can use together when fishing, like new lures/flies, a boning knife, tackle box, whatever. Every time he uses it in the future he'll think of the day he got it and went fishing with his son.

**TNKen** · 07-05-2007, 09:22 PM

I like custom made knives, usually can be had for less than $300 bucks, a nice stag handle kitchen knife or filet knife.

Nice binoculars make a good choice for an outdoorsman. Mine are Swift Audubon in 7x35. Add a good bird book like Peterson's field guide.

If he likes firearms, a pocket pistol such as a Keltec .380. If he likes to shoot rifles, maybe a nice .17 caliber bolt action, like a CZ.

Ken

**DarkStar** · 07-05-2007, 10:19 PM

dbp had a good suggestion about the whaleship Essex...enjoyed that book.

You might also think about "South" - Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the south pole...I also enjoyed "Down the Great Unknown" about John Wesley Powell's first run of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.

Just some suggestions, I also tend to enjoy reading historical biographies and accounts dealing with the wilderness.

**GBB** · 07-06-2007, 12:14 AM

Another somewhat adventure book that is a very easy, but good read is Winterdance, by Gary Paulsen.

It's about the "fine madness of running the Iditiarod."

**orlowskij** · 07-06-2007, 08:01 AM

Originally Posted by DarkStar

dbp had a good suggestion about the whaleship Essex...enjoyed that book.

You might also think about "South" - Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the south pole...I also enjoyed "Down the Great Unknown" about John Wesley Powell's first run of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.

Just some suggestions, I also tend to enjoy reading historical biographies and accounts dealing with the wilderness.

I didn't read South but read Endurance, which I'm pretty sure is the same book. That book popped into mind as soon as I read the initial post, it's a good read.