Fishing Wingless Wets, Without Felt ....

[Mike Connor]

I have not used them yet, although they are supposed to be good. I will try these next;

http://www.yellowstoneangler.com/staff- ... ding-boots

It will certainly be a while before I can report on them, but I have made a couple of sets. Ordinary aluminium strip works fine and is a lot cheaper than buying them ready made.

[Mataura mayfly]

I have not tried aluminium bars of any variety yet, either permanent fixture or slip on "crampon" style, but when you do Mike and have tested them for a while- I would be very interested in your findings or your take on noise vibration transmission from them and your ability to stalk up to trout from behind in their "blind spot" while wearing them.
If you ever get the chance to witness a rugby team wearing boots tagged with large aluminium sprigs as they transfer from a concrete path to the grass playing field, you will get some idea of the noise I am talking about.
If you stalk trout in quiet water it is very hard to go past felt for stealth, rubber soles are not bad- but are not as secure on slimy rock as felt, nor will they ever be, add any metal to the bottom of the sole and you will transmit noise underwater. You may not hear it from above- but trout sure do pick it up and it does not have to be a sole drag over rock, lifting and placing a studded sole carefully will create noise that trout can hear/feel.
If you just wade into position and cast likely looking water, or there is a lot of turbulent water noise where you are wading, it may not be a problem. Stalking up on trout in quiet water while sight fishing- it can be.

[hankaye]

Mataura mayfly, Howdy;

Sound travels about 4.3 times faster in water (depends on temp. fresh or salt),
so that's always something I been apt to consider when wading.

Mike C. please keep us in the loop with your investigation of these bars.

hank

[Mike Connor]

Mataura mayfly, Howdy;

Sound travels about 4.3 times faster in water (depends on temp. fresh or salt),
so that's always something I been apt to consider when wading.

Mike C. please keep us in the loop with your investigation of these bars.

hank

Agreed, that is my own major reservation about any metal at all on boots. Even turbulent water wont help much if you scrape metal on rock, it is a sound that fish are particularly sensitive to and they routinely filter most other "standard" water noise anyway, they have to or their senses would be overwhelmed in any sort of turbulence, they have no trouble at all reacting to metal on rock. You can test this easily, just drag a metal tipped wading staff over a rock,even directly below a waterfall and watch fish shoot away ( assuming you are in the right position to do so, which is admittedly not always very easy to find). I have observed this often after finding a few places where I could. I prefer to stay out of the water altogether on rivers if I can manage it. Athough I used to do a lot of wading I do a lot less nowadays.

However, in saltwater I often fish over rock, and the added security is important to me. I once fell on some rock on the Danish coast and hit my knee so badly that I had to crawl to my car which was quite a way away. Had it been much further I might not have made it, I would probably have frozen to death as it was very cold at the time. So I am particularly anxious not to do anything like that ever again. I was wearing felts at the time.

The aluminium bars do seem very promising as far as secure ( or at least "better") footing is concerned but I don't think they will be any better than any other metal as far as stealth is concerned. So it's a compromise at best.

As soon as I have any useful information at all I will post it.

[Eric Peper]

I truly love my Danner River Grippers. They are very comfortable, easy on-and-off (provided they're wet), and very secure footing. Regrettably, they are apparently the equivalent of a ghetto boombox underwater. The Henry's Fork is weedy, and so long as I am able to keep my feet on the weeds rather than the rocks, we don't have a problem. But once one of those nasty little studs scrapes a rock, if there is a fish within 40 feet, the stalk is over. Adios riser.

Eric

[zen leecher]

Greetings, I'm new here and wondered where I'd place my first post.

When I worked I hung around with engineers too long but I have a business background. There's been some talk about outlawing felts in WA state so when I was getting new waders I also got new boots. I couldn't find the Simms studs anywhere but did notice the price (business background). The part that hung around the engineers too long got me to go to the local metal store and buy about 80 little sheet metal screws. Couldn't figure out where the best spots on the boot bottoms were and I didn't want to slip so I put one in every little spot. (OC part of me). I got the 80 sheet metal screws for $2-$3 and on the one trip I was out they grabbed better than my old felt boots.

Ron Eagle Elk pointed me to this forum.

Bill W

My second post: I had someone from this forum suggest I had used too many sheet metal screws and stood the chance of separating my soles. Also had a Simms rep confirm this. Dang... I thought O.C. was the way to go and follow what the "voices" told me to do. I will now remove most of the screws.

[Mataura mayfly]

Back in the day, many back country hunters and fishers (often one in the same person) had but one pair of boots for all purposes. Usually these boots were leather uppers and leather soles resplendent with horse shoe hobnails. For extra grip on moss or ice covered rock tricouni plates were often added.



Once the screw on rubber "commando" sole became popular the hobnails were dispensed with, but often the tricouni remained- just less of them- often just the pair on either side of the instep in front of the heel block and maybe a single on the front of the toe curve.
Yes, they were noisy, but they were very good at slicing through slime or ice and gripping on rock.