sweet+salt
03-23-2009, 03:07 PM
I am reproducing my post from the Tackel Forum because I failed to generate the dialog there that I had hoped to with my below opinions. Perhaps this is more of a trout/freshwater issue anyway:
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I am going to 'wade' in on this issue and broaden it a bit.
First the issue of salt vs. fresh water sets up different criteria. Both environments require a wading boot that bears some relationship to hiking-style footwear. We anglers wade about on uneven, slippery and often less than ideally visible surfaces and deserve all the foot and ankle support we can get. Long-time wading boot producers like Simms, Orvis, innovative Patagonia and others offer sophisticated lateral and torsional support designed into their boots. Synthetic rather than leather uppers are important too as they won't rot when wet for prolonged periods nor uncomfortably stiffen when dry.
I have performed an experiment: I assembled top quality boots in my size (one up from street shoes is the general rule and look for roomy toe boxes to accommodate thick socks and neoprene booties) with felt and "Aquastealth" soles each with and without studs or caulks and waded across a variable bottom structured river with a different boot on each foot until all combinations had been exhausted. It is true, like nearly everything else in life, that nothing is perfect and compromises abound. It is also true that felt stays wet longer than rubber and that carbide studs are bad news in some watercraft (and, as mentioned above; don't step on your fly line or your buddies new mahogany deck at his fish house wearing studs). However, the clear traction winner by far on assorted wet rock surfaces, clean or slimy, is felt with built in carbide caulks. Plain felt and studded rubber are sort of tied and plain 'sticky' rubber, though best for land walking, is worst in a river.
None of us want to be responsible for transporting alien organisms or their spores, larvae, eggs or whatever from an infected to a pristine environment. Though some noise has been generated in recent seasons regarding felt sole's potential roll as carriers of icky stuff, lets not ignore the similar ability of wet uppers, neoprene booties/gravel cuffs, boat bottoms, trailers and mucky trucks backed in at the launch site (lots more surface area here than on any sole). As much as we strive to be environmentaly responsible, we also don't want to pollute our fish's habitats by slipping in and leaching our various floatants, sinkents, desiccants, etc. from our sodden vests into the river while drowning electronic key fobs and multi-megapixel cameras in the great rivers and off the jetties we love.
Sticky rubber with aggressive studs right out to the soles perimeters are a great choice on those jetties and felt with studs is still the clear winner in most rivers. Perhaps, as is already being done at the Nature Conservancy's "Silver Creek Preserve", we and our conservation organizations should be investing in installing disinfecting troughs with stout brushes for boot and wader cleansing at public access locations...a great project for local fishing club chapters...along with informative signage.
Many anglers - and this forum contributor is no exception - are not trained aquatic biologists; but we like to make believe we are. Fine. Lets remember, however, the giant stir about whirling disease prompted by a major decline in rainbow trout stocks in the Madison and other western rivers during the 1990's. Overnight this European amoebic parasite was the cause and the calling cry to raise piles of cash to combat. That the population decline on the Madison was actually the result of an accidental diversion of flows below Quake Lake that left the fecund, ideal spawning habitat of the Slide Inn Channels as dry gravel pits combined with a decade-long drought throughout the Rocky Mountain west was lost on many anglers' awareness. Easier to blame an alien parasite than human error and poor water management. If only some of those whirling disease dollars could be directed toward an earth moving machine with an engineering plan to reposition a few big boulders, those dry channels would soon return to their former role as major sources of juvenile trout recruitment.
Don't get me wrong, I want to protect our wild fisheries from any and all threats especially non-native organisms. That happens to include Homo sapiens, native only to Africa and an immigrant here in America but I make an exception for my favorite alien interloper, Salmo trutta - the brown trout. Lets just not risk our wading safety and sure-footedness over hastily construed, incomplete data about how detrimental organisms have found their way into our waters.
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I am going to 'wade' in on this issue and broaden it a bit.
First the issue of salt vs. fresh water sets up different criteria. Both environments require a wading boot that bears some relationship to hiking-style footwear. We anglers wade about on uneven, slippery and often less than ideally visible surfaces and deserve all the foot and ankle support we can get. Long-time wading boot producers like Simms, Orvis, innovative Patagonia and others offer sophisticated lateral and torsional support designed into their boots. Synthetic rather than leather uppers are important too as they won't rot when wet for prolonged periods nor uncomfortably stiffen when dry.
I have performed an experiment: I assembled top quality boots in my size (one up from street shoes is the general rule and look for roomy toe boxes to accommodate thick socks and neoprene booties) with felt and "Aquastealth" soles each with and without studs or caulks and waded across a variable bottom structured river with a different boot on each foot until all combinations had been exhausted. It is true, like nearly everything else in life, that nothing is perfect and compromises abound. It is also true that felt stays wet longer than rubber and that carbide studs are bad news in some watercraft (and, as mentioned above; don't step on your fly line or your buddies new mahogany deck at his fish house wearing studs). However, the clear traction winner by far on assorted wet rock surfaces, clean or slimy, is felt with built in carbide caulks. Plain felt and studded rubber are sort of tied and plain 'sticky' rubber, though best for land walking, is worst in a river.
None of us want to be responsible for transporting alien organisms or their spores, larvae, eggs or whatever from an infected to a pristine environment. Though some noise has been generated in recent seasons regarding felt sole's potential roll as carriers of icky stuff, lets not ignore the similar ability of wet uppers, neoprene booties/gravel cuffs, boat bottoms, trailers and mucky trucks backed in at the launch site (lots more surface area here than on any sole). As much as we strive to be environmentaly responsible, we also don't want to pollute our fish's habitats by slipping in and leaching our various floatants, sinkents, desiccants, etc. from our sodden vests into the river while drowning electronic key fobs and multi-megapixel cameras in the great rivers and off the jetties we love.
Sticky rubber with aggressive studs right out to the soles perimeters are a great choice on those jetties and felt with studs is still the clear winner in most rivers. Perhaps, as is already being done at the Nature Conservancy's "Silver Creek Preserve", we and our conservation organizations should be investing in installing disinfecting troughs with stout brushes for boot and wader cleansing at public access locations...a great project for local fishing club chapters...along with informative signage.
Many anglers - and this forum contributor is no exception - are not trained aquatic biologists; but we like to make believe we are. Fine. Lets remember, however, the giant stir about whirling disease prompted by a major decline in rainbow trout stocks in the Madison and other western rivers during the 1990's. Overnight this European amoebic parasite was the cause and the calling cry to raise piles of cash to combat. That the population decline on the Madison was actually the result of an accidental diversion of flows below Quake Lake that left the fecund, ideal spawning habitat of the Slide Inn Channels as dry gravel pits combined with a decade-long drought throughout the Rocky Mountain west was lost on many anglers' awareness. Easier to blame an alien parasite than human error and poor water management. If only some of those whirling disease dollars could be directed toward an earth moving machine with an engineering plan to reposition a few big boulders, those dry channels would soon return to their former role as major sources of juvenile trout recruitment.
Don't get me wrong, I want to protect our wild fisheries from any and all threats especially non-native organisms. That happens to include Homo sapiens, native only to Africa and an immigrant here in America but I make an exception for my favorite alien interloper, Salmo trutta - the brown trout. Lets just not risk our wading safety and sure-footedness over hastily construed, incomplete data about how detrimental organisms have found their way into our waters.