Aquastealth Boots Question

[Bruce Berman]

It's time to get a new pair of boots and I'd like to get away from felt and cleats for the environment's sake. A rubber "aquastealth" type sole with screw-in studs is probably what I need, but I can't find any info that reviews and compares what's now out on the market. Any suggestions would be welcome.

[wjorg]

Traction sucks. Cleats are the only saving grace.

But nobody ever considers the environmental damage from cleats...

[Scott V]

Bruce, from all the previous posts I have seen the only way to make the aquastealth work halfway descent is to use the screws, but that in itself is damaging to the enviroment. I personally will stick to using felt, I do not believe just changing the soles of a boot that gets fully submerged into the water will make that much of a difference. It may help a little but so will proper cleaning and drying of boots before going to another watershed.

[Jet]

Bruce.... I bought a pair used at least 6 years ago and have never turned back. I think I have the original one's with the carbide studs used in car tires. I liked them because they did not absorb all the water that felts do and I think they grip better than plain felt. Mine are so old that they did not double stitch the soles and I have to glue them every season or two with some barge cement. I use them all the time and I feel I have to be more cautious when using plain felt when on float trips. I too may be replacing them soon and would not hesitate getting another pair or the new Simms version. One thing you have to be concerned about is boulder hopping with studs on polished rocks. I learned the hard way but was not hurt just scared. You can slide very easily. I am concerned about the new screw in studs because they have a larger surface area and may not grip as well as the studs I have with a small tip that can penetrate into rocks for grip. I think that boots have gotten so expensive that they came up with removable studs to trick you into thinking you only need one pair. I think it would be a PIA to add and remove studs and I think over time the holes become loose and you'll have to make new ones. I think we are going to still need 2 pairs and I'll keep may plain felts till they say I can't use them any more. So.... When you get your new pair of Aquastealth boot my suggestion is to only put the studs in the front half of the boots and leave the heels bare. I think this will help with bolder hopping and I can't ever recall a time when the studs in my heel help save my butt.
I have not tried the screw in studs yet but I hope they make a version with the bullet proof car tire studs like I have now. Good luck Bruce and Happy Boot Hunting

Jet

P.S. Thanks for the info on the Trinity

[bigfly]

For what it's worth, there are two times I think the aquatread is best. Studs or no.
1. Walking in snow with felt gives you the Frankenstein platform foot.
2. Hiking a bunch wears out the felt fast.

Once you see a watershed contaminated with rocksnot or snails (like the LT), you begin to take this more serously.
Rubber's not a panicea, you still need to pay attention to treatment, before transporting to other water. But felt looks like the perfect medium to move bad stuff. Don't forget to clean under the gravel cuffs on your waders too.

Jim

[Bruce Berman]

I checked out the offerings at my local fly shop and liked both the Simms and the Korkers. I've been using Korkers for about 4 years and have a love/hate relationship with them. The felt with studs works incredibly well but my uppers have not held up as well as I'd have liked. The new model looks pretty good and I can put the Aquastealth soles on if I'm going on a boat. They're only $85 or so. I think the answer is two pair of boots, one for tainted water and the other for untainted. Whenever possible, I'll still freeze my boots in between watersheds, but that's not always possible.

[amoeba]

It's time to get a new pair of boots and I'd like to get away from felt and cleats for the environment's sake. A rubber "aquastealth" type sole with screw-in studs is probably what I need, but I can't find any info that reviews and compares what's now out on the market. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Trust me on these facts:

a) no brand of rubber, by itself, has traction in water; none, zero, nada. you have to have studs on anything slippery. wjorg already said so. I say so. It is so.

b) the studs aren't really removable. You can't take out and put in studs many times; after about 3-4 times they will not stay in and then you have studless, tractionless, rubbersoled wading shoes;

c) I own two pairs of rubbersoled shoes; one is the original aquastealth, the second is the state of the art Simms sticky rubber. Here is my review of the sticky rubber.

Rubber doesn't stick, not to the bottom of the river, and -for me- not to the sole either. After about 6 times out, the rubber began to delaminate from the toe on both shoes, of course I noticed it within days of a going away for 2 weeks of fishing and had planned to torture myself by bringing them - probably not a good thing since I needed every bit of traction and more from my felts.

Anyhow, Simms did replace them - and I have yet to wear them again.

d) as far as hiking on land, rubber soles work great.

e) as far as transferring vectors, it doesn't matter if it is felt or rubber. That is a bunch of baloney promoted only by trout unlimited - which they converted into some free press in low lying fruit (i.e., low population) states like Montana and Alaska. Both get dirty, so you need to clean them after use. And just a morsel of news flash here, which nobody seems to want to tell you - Didymo is a ubiquitous native organism to the USA; not a foreign vector. It is everywhere and sometimes carpets a river ("blooms"). We don't know what causes those blooms; it is possible that it is environmental - some chemical factor, something associated with rangeland management - perhaps temperature, maybe nutrients, maybe a micronutrient or chemical. But it isn't felt, and Didymo spread around fine before felt wading soles. The whole concept of NGO's like TU wading politically into what should be purely scientific issues (if there is one at all) just P's me off. It's more than a bit disappointing that Simms discontinued felt (and others followed), giving an appearance of legitimacy to the "felt problem" hysteria. Anyway, the upside is that you can get some pretty cheap Simms felt sif you prowl the usual internet sites: fleabay and so forth.

it's not that I'm opposed to rubber, it's just that the rubber soles marketed so far don't provide any significant increment of traction to stream bottoms.

I second, or third, or fourth, the other posts here of "sticking" to felt, as long as I can find the shoes or the replacement soles.

f) the screw-in studs are "OK"; I don't notice any big diff between them and the built in studs. I use the maximum stud pattern (about 10 per shoe); no way will you get me to just do the toe only as posted.

[Bob Laskodi]

As others have said, rubber (no matter what make) does not stick very well underwater. On dry land, rubber is awesome, far better than felt. Underwater, well I'll be kind and just say rubber sucks and nothing yet made can touch felt! So pick where you would prefer to fall (water or land) and go from there. As others have also said, in regards to ANS transmission, uncleaned rubber boots are just about as bad as uncleaned felt, so don't be compelled to go rubber just because you want to "go green".

[Ed Wahl]

Amoeba, damn it, we finally agree on something.

It had to happen sooner or later.

You've put it in perfect perspective.

Didymo is ours, it's been around forever, but in the last decade or so it's been "blooming" like never before.

So at least in our hemisphere, what's the point of using rubber soled wading boots? Or even solid rubber wading boots? Or bare feet? "studded?"

I think I smell a rat.

Ed

[wjorg]

Just the other week, here in SF, we had whole hordes of folks walking around, and all they wore were little straps of leather, with studs all over....

I should have asked them if they prefer aquastealth or felt?