Fly Fishing - Wading Boot Review: Simms Rivershed Vibram Sole

kory_k · Location: New York, NY

I recently got a pair of the new Simms Rivershed Vibram soled boots and have been trying them out in various places. The sole is their new vibram sole that is designed to help prevent the spread of invasive species such as whirling disease, new zealand mud snails and more recently didymo. Many state agency and watershed managers are recognizing the problem of felt and how easily it allows diseases to be transported within the material. Some places are starting to actually ban it and this will just increase as time goes on. The vibram sole is designed to replace the ever popular and widely used felt sole and underwent a lot of research and development.

I will admit that I was very skeptical as I have tried an older similar material, Simms aquastealth and was very disappointed. The traction was very poor on many stream bottom types especially smooth stone and ledgerock bottom where you have a light coating of algae (the slickest bottom in my opinion). I wade all sorts of rivers and not being able to rely on your wading boot sole for traction is unacceptable and even life-threatening and dangerous. Because of the poor performance of aquastealth, i never wore those boots and have been a die hard studded felt guy ever since. Based on this experience, I was extremely skeptical but realized eventually i would have to change and wanted to try them out. I decided to not stud them initially so i could truly evaluate their performance. I will admit I was very impressed. I tried the boots out on several different occasions in several different rivers and in the ocean with different bottom structure including the slick polished algae coated rocks. The vibram sole provided extremely good traction very comparable to felt alone. When I got on very slick algae coated rock, they did slip around and i lost some traction but i had the same experience with unstudded felt on those types of rocks. When I was on bottom structure where unstudded felt would perform well, the vibram sole performed extremely well and i actually had better traction than i ever would have imagined. I think if i studded them up which I will do, they will be close to if not equal to a studded felt bottom.

There are some other benefits to the vibram sole wading boot as well. With the vibram sole, the boot dries very quickly unlike felt which sometimes took days. When hiking to and from the water, the vibram sole performed as good as a hiking boot unlike felt which would slip very easily especially on muddy trails. Cleaning the vibram sole is also very easy compared to felt.

Overall, I would definitely recommend the simms vibram soled boot. The rivershed was the model i used and it is very comfortable and provides good support but there are several other wading shoes made by simms that also have the vibram sole.

Has anyone else out there tried this boot? If you have, i would be curious about your experience.