Bill Kiene's "History of wading boots...in America".
50 years ago we used anything that we could find for wading boots on our Seal-Dri Seamless Latex chest high stocking foot waders.
One of the first official wading boots or shoes was the Converse canvas felt sole boot.
After the Vietnam war we took the old Jungle Boots and glued carpet to the bottoms.
Some anglers used the Converse high top "Chuck Taylor" baseball shoes, one size larger, with felt or carpet glued to the bottoms.
In the 1970s Russells were the first high end leather felt sole wading shoe that Creative Sports fly shop sold in the Bay area.
Then Danner and Weinbrenner came along with top quality leather wading boots with felt soles.
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Then they put metal accessories on the bottoms of boots or boot foot chest high waders for wading big rocky streams and rivers.
Creative Sports made an aluminum multi-piece sandal that went on the bottom of your boots for grip called "Muncies".
Dan Bailey's added aluminum bars to the bottom of rubber over shoes called "Bailey's Stream Cleats".
We used "Korkers" that were rubber sandals with carbide studs first designed for loggers and walking on the decks of metal ships.
Then they put the Korker carbide studs in the felt sols on new wading boots.
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Today Simms, Patagonia, Redington, Orvis and Korkers make a huge variety of wading boots.
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Today with invasive species and viruses that effect the fish felt soles have gone away and new synthetic soles are here.
What did I miss......?
