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Many (online) shops classify boots between hiking and hunting; for example, see hunting boots. The hunting boots look more like the kind of boots I like, than the hiking boots do. What are the differences? Is it just that hiking boots are assumed to be used on trails and hunting boots in any terrain, or are there other differences?
Personally, I rarely hike on trails on my big wilderness hikes.
From that linked site, "Hunting" just seems to be a marketing term, since most of the boots appear in multiple categories.
Here in New Zealand, professional hunters usually wear rubber lace-ups. When you spend weeks in the bush at a time, a leather boot will rot and fall apart.
People who hunt for a day or a weekend wear the same boots as pretty much everyone else in the bush. About the only distinction a New Zealand store would make in marketing boots is "Non-Alpine" and "Alpine" - the difference being that alpine boots have full-length shanks and mounting points for crampons.
For example, Torpedo7 has "Hiking Boots" and "Snow Boots".
I talked to a person (employee or owner) at the Bush Craft Store in Enfield, Middlesex. He told me that the Hanwag Brenner Wide boots have been specifically designed to be quiet, with the use for hunters in mind. Quiet boots would be more particularly relevant for hunters and nature photographers, and less so for "regular" hikers.
