From wide-open trails to weekend gatherings, Poncho Outdoors keeps you comfortable and classic.
"We’re making shirts for the best days of your life." In the hyper-saturated world of performance outdoor apparel, that’s one catchy claim and even better if it actually holds up. What shirt-shopping adventurer lighting out on his next Kenai Peninsula fly-fishing trip, Sawtooth Valley horseback holiday, or Gates of Lodore rafting run wouldn’t give any handsome shirt backed by this pledge a fair shot? The boutique brand behind the claim: Poncho Outdoors. Since its launch eight years ago with The Original—a re-conceptualized fishing shirt that swiftly caught itself a big fanbase—the small Austin, Texas-based company has remained focused on creating the most comfortable, functional, fitting, durable, all-around-wearable performance shirts made for many of our favorite pastimes in the great outdoors. If you veer toward cleaner, simpler-styled outdoor attire (and steer away from goofier-looking adventure wear cluttered with excess features that might even scare the trout away), Poncho’s official motto will also feel refreshing and hopeful: “Everything you need. Nothing you don’t.”
Last summer, I devised a homespun challenge for my first Poncho shirt-wearing experience. While I would’ve loved to be trying it out on a bucket list adventure in some wild, wonderful spot to ensure that this shirt was, indeed, tailor-made for the best day of my life, that day didn’t coincide with the neatly packaged arrival of Wild Bill—a moss green, floral-patterned Western performance shirt and Poncho bestseller—landing on my doorstep in Los Angeles during a heat wave. So, instead, I’d be testing the mettle of this lightweight, breathable, quick-drying, UPF 50+ sun-protected Western garment with its elegantly vented back, snazzy pearl snaps, and lean array of cleverly concealed features—including a sunglasses holder, built-in lens cloth, and handy hidden zippered chest pocket for a phone—during a sweltering L.A. weekend.
Dusty Burson at 6666 Ranch Dixon Creek in Texas wearing The Guthrie.
Cycling around central L.A. on sketchy bike lanes. Hiking hot, scrubby trails in the Santa Monica Mountains. Running sweaty errands. Browsing overpriced farmers markets. Griping about the heat with friends and neighbors over backyard fences and beers. This is decent-day-of-my-life fodder at best, but also perhaps the perfect testing ground for giving Wild Bill a fair whirl. If this shirt could keep me happy, dry, and presentable during a very toasty, active L.A. weekend, it would clearly make me ecstatic somewhere even nicer and wilder.
Poncho’s collared, button-up shirts (there are now at least 250 of them at last count) all have their own wild-sounding names in alignment with the company’s outdoor ethos. There’s “The Bushwacker” and “The Amberjack,” “The Alamosa” and “The Hidalgo,” “The Bat Masterson,” and “The Big Bend,” etc. They branch across six different lines—including Western, Ultra-Lite, Denim, Corduroy, Flannel, and the brand’s “Original” lightweight, breathable, quick-drying fishing shirt—plus hoodies and crews, and a separate kids line. Shirt sizes run from small to triple XL, with the added option of regular or slim fit.
Design-wise, Poncho’s bold but understated approach includes a core of features that have become brand trademarks. A signature of the Original shirt is its easy-open magnetic pockets (also found on most of their Flannel shirts— perfect for one-hand grabs while clutching a fishing rod or brookie with the other. Sunglasses holder, hidden lens cloth, UV protection, and other smart touches are found on every Poncho shirt, some of which run leaner than others. Leanest of all is the Ultra-Lite, featuring the same lightweight, breathable nylon-based fabric and touch of spandex stretch as the Original. Burliest is the medium-weight Flannel which, in Poncho parlance, “fits like a hug from a lumberjack.”
The Original — not your dad’s fishing shirt
Poncho’s style points really hit their stride with the Western line, full of classy detailing and those definitive pearl snaps (also on the Denim and Western Flannel shirts) accenting a light, breathable performance shirt. The common denominator for every shirt in the Poncho pantheon revolves around fit, feel, and function—along with the brand’s original spark: simplicity.
“I was guiding fishing trips in this incredibly beautiful and remote area of Alaska, wearing fishing shirts every day that were big and baggy with a bunch of inner pockets and straps. I had no idea what any of that stuff was for—and I still don’t,” recalls Poncho founder and CEO Clay Spencer, who found himself conceptualizing a better shirt for the job while working out of a remote fly-fishing lodge in the Talkeetna Mountains after graduating from the University of Texas. That was about 20 years ago, “and there was no association with turning it into a business back then,” he says. “I just had this vision of what I wanted to wear and what it should look like. It was highly functional but also simpler, cleaner, and nicer than what existed. It was just something I wanted for myself.” Cut to a dozen years later, after a Stanford MBA and a career in corporate finance, Spencer—a lifelong outdoorsman, who grew up hunting and fishing in his home state of Texas—found himself thinking about outdoor performance shirts again, this time with a viable business in mind.
“I was living in New York City. I’d worked with amazing people but didn’t feel deeply fulfilled and knew I was an entrepreneur at heart,” Spencer says. “Poncho was really my dream of starting my own business in that other world I loved so much.” Fortunately, parachute-style, pocket-infested fishing shirts still hadn’t gone away, so there remained a need for a simplified, comfier, better-fitting alternative. Spencer went about designing the model that had been on the back burner since his Alaska fly-fishing guide days in 2004. Poncho was launched in Austin in 2018 with the Original—which quickly found its audience. Western styles came next, taken on by Spencer and a tight Poncho staff of like-minded outdoors-men who saw room for improvement and innovation there, too.
"Everybody Loves Wild Bill"
“Western shirts were always in the plans—I grew up wearing them, they’d always been a part of my life—and ours really stem from something I’d wanted and saw a need for,” Spencer says. “Where I think we were really innovative was making a performance Western shirt. I’d never seen that before. Working on the ranch, or wherever it’s hot and you’re sweaty and working or playing hard—it just made perfect sense.” As with the fishing shirts, Poncho’s performance Western shirts found their growing fanbase fast and now include several of the brand’s top sellers—including Wild Bill. “Wild Bill is extremely sold-out, wildly popular, and a huge surprise,” says Spencer laughing. “We thought it would be absolutely loved by a niche group of people, but as it turns out, everybody loves Wild Bill.” “Everybody loves Wild Bill.” If you don’t take your performance Western shirt with wildflowers on it, there are plenty of other options. Dusty Burson, manager of the historic 6666 Ranch in King County, Texas, points to The Pickup Man, a tan-based workhorse with vertical stripes, as his Poncho shirt of choice— if he could only have just one. He now has several.
“After wearing my first Poncho shirt, I wanted every one of my shirts to be a Poncho,” says Burson, who’d received that first one as a gift and was instantly sold. “I love the comfort and fit of them. They’re not only the best work shirts on the ranch, but they look nice enough to wear for any occasion that comes your way.” On my hot, sweaty, shirt-testing weekend in Los Angeles, a lot of occasions have Wild Bill in the crosshairs. That long bike ride in traffic with intermittent errands. The good hike in the dusty hills above the Pacific Coast. Dog walks, farmers markets, neighbor schmoozes, and, finally, dinner with a friend who shows up wearing a grubby T-shirt. “I didn’t know we were dressing up,” he says, admiring my Wild Bill.
Light and supremely comfortable with the perfect bit of stretch and serious quick-drying chops, this shirt has expertly handled everything thrown at it for the better part of two straight days in the heat. It’s looking far fresher than I feel on a Sunday evening at the grocery store at the end of a weekend that may not have constituted the very best days of my life, but certainly better for having worn Wild Bill.
The cashier looks tired, too, eyes glued to the scanner, but something catches her eye. She looks up, possibly for the first time this shift. “Now that,” she says, “is a really nice shirt.”
Poncho founder Clay Spencer wearing The Gulf Stream.
PONCHO POINTERS
We asked Poncho Outdoors founder and avid outdoorsman Clay Spencer several pressing questions to get us up to speed on the brand.
Cowboys & Indians: How did the name Poncho originate?
Clay Spencer: After a lot of thinking. It’s not easy to name a company. We started with what we love and gravitate to: the great outdoors, whether it’s hunting, fishing, ranching, rodeoing, or barbecuing—and we wanted the name to somehow reflect all of that. Poncho is a nod to St. Francisco [aka St. Francis of Assisi], the patron saint of animals and the outdoors, whose nickname in Spanish is Pancho. We traded the “a” for an “o”—so, it’s sort of a doubly hidden meaning but points to all those things that are most important and meaningful to us.
C&I: Style-wise, what’s Poncho’s version of kryptonite for an outdoor performance shirt? Hook and loop fasteners?
Spencer: We haven’t outlawed anything specific at Poncho. It’s more of an affirmative approach where we ask ourselves, “How do we make this the very best it can be?” Various things, including VELCRO® I guess, haven’t quite made the cut for us—while we’re very proud of details like our magnetic pocket flaps that you can get in and out of with one hand and the incredible fabrics we’re using to make our shirts—something that might feel like cotton but also has all the performance features of being breathable, quick-dry, and stretchy with a high UPF rating. To get all of that great stuff you want into one shirt is really difficult, and it's what we spend years developing, researching, and being preoccupied with.
C&I: What’s your favorite thing someone has told you about a Poncho shirt?
Spencer: “This is the most comfortable shirt I own.” When we hear that, we know we’ve done our job.
C&I: Bat Masterson, Hidalgo, Wild Bill, Fort Davis. We love the names of your shirts. Is this your team having a good time?
Spencer: We’re having a very good time, and our best shirt names usually come up over a round of beers. We love naming them after people, small towns, fishing places, other out-there spots, and wild animals—all the stuff that stokes our inspiration and connection to the great outdoors.
C&I: Personal favorite Poncho shirt?
Spencer: That’s like asking me to point to one of my three kids, but with many more choices. I absolutely love our performance Western shirts and probably wear those the most. Another one of my very favorite shirts that I live in is from our Denim line: The Marfa. It’s remarkably soft and comfortable and has this vintage-y, worn-in look to it like it’s been with you for a long time. It also has some subtle stretch without looking like it does—that was something we worked very hard to achieve. Rodeo cowboys love this shirt because it doesn’t pinch or grab, and they can really move in it.
C&I: “Expand Wild Places” is a big Poncho initiative. How are conservation ideals built into the company and the product?
Spencer: Now that we’ve grown to a point where we have a voice, we’ve gotten pretty serious about finding the most impactful organizations and putting our weight behind them. A percentage of our profits go to Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, which has done incredible work in preserving habitats, restoring reefs, and doing the hard science to really figure out where to make an impact. CCA [Coastal Conservation Association] is another big partner that we support and sponsor, providing merchandise for their fundraising efforts all over the U.S. A big upcoming project here in our backyard we’re really excited about is making a collaboration shirt with the Coastal Bend Bays Estuary Program, where 100 percent of the profits go to supporting a specific oyster-reef restoration project on the Texas Coast. As far as managing our own footprint, we’re committed to being good stewards. All our shirts are made with a certified bluesign-approved manufacturing process to ensure what we make is made responsibly.
C&I: What’s next for Poncho? Any new releases we should know about?
Spencer: In late November, just in time for the holidays, we’ll be releasing our new Tuff Thread Shirt— made from an incredible lightweight, quick-drying fabric that is virtually indestructible. You’d have to do something really bad in this shirt to ruin it. But what’s most remarkable is how light and breathable it is while being nearly tearproof. Great for heavy work in hot environments, busting through the brush, rodeoing, fence building, and anything else you can throw at it. We have lots of other stuff in the works we’re very excited about, but nothing I can mention quite yet. We’re exceptionally slow and methodical in rolling out new products. When we do, it’s a big deal because an enormous amount of thought and work has gone into it.
C&I: Can you drop us a hint if one of those slow-and-methodical projects on the horizon is Poncho shirts for women?
Spencer: We will do women’s shirts. No date for it yet, but they’re definitely in Poncho’s future, too.
From the October 2025 Issue
Cover Image: Clay Forst at Stuart Ranch in Oklahoma wearing The Piedras Negras.
