While the new rubber soles seemingly offer evolutionary potential – studded rubber soles could ultimately replace felt/studded felt, largely for economic reasons – the standard sticky rubber probably won’t replace anything anytime soon.

My recent October Caddis trip found me wearing Simms’ new StreamTread (Vibram rubber soled) Headwater boots, while Older Bro wore one Korkers Guide Boot with a plain “Kling-On” sticky rubber sole, and one with a studded rubber “Kling-On” sole.

Korkers were made for testing

I quickly discovered the plain, un-studded Simms soles worked… OK.

Well, not really.

I didn’t fall.

But I did skid. And slide. And skate.

The same soles that performed surprisingly well on the fairly flat-bottomed-but-snotty Rogue River failed miserably on the Upper Sac’s angular streambed.

Step on a rock that angled downward, and my boots were sure to follow.

If the Vibram-soled Simms wading boots are destined for wide market acceptance, then they’ll do so on the back of one of two things:

• Massive growth of fly fishermen accessing easy-wading rivers (like the Rogue or Bitterroot)
• The liberal application of Simms Wading boot studs

The Korkers Story

The Korkers Guide Boots were seemingly tailor-made for this kind of testing; the soles are interchangeable, so it was easy to stick a studded rubber sole in the left boot, leaving the plain “sticky” rubber sole in the right.

The results were (by now) predictable.

The lack of grip offered by the plain rubber sole made the right boot immensely unpopular with novice wader Older Bro, and in truth, you could actually see the difference when he waded.

His right boot didn’t stick, and his left boot did.

OK.

This was sorta expected.

Wading Boots, So Far

I’m slowly but surely working my way towards one conclusion: For general, all-around use on freestone rivers, most anglers will want to add studs to their “sticky” rubber soled boots.

Straight sticky rubber might work fine on easier rivers, and if I fished the Bitterroot exclusively, plain rubber would be enough.

And yes, for small stream work, you’ll have to pry my Patagonia Riverwalkers – the only truly “sticky” rubber soles of the lot – from my cold, dead feet.

I’ve gotten along OK on the Upper Sacramento with my plain rubber Patagonia boots, but on steeper freestone rivers like the McCloud (hard wading), and the Pit River (got insurance?), plain rubber could earn you an eventual trip to the ER.

What’s Next?

The Underground’s fulltime Wading Boot Engineer stayed up all night and added studs to the Simms boots, and the Korkers will soon be sporting one felt sole alongside the studded rubber.

As I said before, studded rubber might prove a worthwhile replacement for studded felt purely on longevity and economic grounds, but first it has to deliver near-studded felt grip.

That may not be all that difficult; my old Weinbrenner studded rubber boots worked well enough to become my everyday boots, and the new rubber soles should (hopefully) deliver better grip than those.

In other words, more to come. Stay tuned.

More water time for our test boots

We’re not quite ready to spring our testing extravaganza post yet, but the Simms Vibram-soled wading boots sent for testing have been seeing more river time at the hands (or feet, actually) of a pair of local fly fishing guides.

While Dave Roberts and I thought they performed surprisingly well on the rock-snotty Rogue River, reports from local guides Wayne Eng and Steve Bertrand aren’t quite as encouraging.

First, keep in mind we’re testing the bare rubber soles – to which no screws have been added.

Screwing in a couple of Simms metal studs would likely improve their traction in difficult circumstances, though it would also negate some of the benefits of non-studded boots (they don’t make guides crazy in drift boats, you can wear them in your car without attaching yourself to the gas pedal at an inopportune time, etc)

The Guide Word

First, Wayne said “I was feeling pretty good about the new boots… until I hit the McCloud. When I needed them, they simply weren’t there for me.”

Wayne has worn the Simms boots more than I have – and generally liked them – but once he hit the bigger, rounder, smoother rocks of the McCloud, he became an unhappy camper, suggesting the grip was simply unreliable.

A couple Undergrounders commented on similar experiences on the Pit River’s devilishly difficult bigger, smoother rocks, which clearly isn’t the strong suit of the Simms boots.

Steve Bertrand has also worn the boots enough to decide that they’re “a great wading boot, just not on this river.” Bertrand bemoaned almost falling twice on an Upper Sacramento river crossing he normally handles easily while wearing Simms’ older-model studded rubber boots.

Again, everybody loves the way they work out of the water – and how they operate under most conditions – but on the bigger, smoother surfaces, the no-studs Vibram sole isn’t making the grade.

Oddly, this isn’t end-of-the-world stuff. The McCloud and Pit are notoriously difficult rivers to wade, and the fact that the Vibram rubber soles have performed this well – sans a few easily installed studs – is a promising development.

In gravelly or cobbled rock environments, the Simms soles seems to be working well. For those fishing tougher water, screwing in a few studs might just offer the best of all worlds; a long-wearing rubber sole that works better than felt in many less-challenging environments (like climbing a bank or in the snow), but still grips well in the tougher stuff.

In other words, these rubber soles are clearly an improvement over Simms’ older rubber soles, so it stands to reason they’ll also exceed the performance of the older models once you add a few studs – while lasting far longer than felt.

Patagonia Riverwalkers

Sadly, the Patagonia Riverwalker boots (subject of a review here, and possessors of a softer sole material but a less-aggressive tread) weren’t being tested on the McCloud, so a side-by-side comparison isn’t yet possible (we’re working on it).

Ian Rutter – intrigued by my earlier post about the Riverwalkers – got a pair and has been testing them on the tailwaters and small streams of Eastern Tennessee, and has decided they’re close – but that slipping (and windmilling) an extra 10% of the time probably isn’t worth it to him.

He’s especially uncomfortable with their grip on very smooth, “bedrock” style surfaces.

Like the rest of us, he loves their dry-land performance and comfort, but will probably be sticking with felt a while longer.

We’ve got our hands full simply testing two pair of rubber soled boots, but we were still intrigued to learn that Cloudveil’s boots are going for a test ride over on the roughfisher.com blog.

So many boots. So little fly fishing time.

Still, we’ll keep you posted.

See you on the test range, Tom Chandler.