Felt Soles For Your Soul

[Flysmallie]

I got up this morning and built a fire and threw my beloved felt sole sandals into the fire.

No more felt for me, boys.

For those of you that insist on continuing to wear felt, shame on you. You are just being selfish. Focus on improving your wading skills and buy a wading staff!

What a waste! What is wrong with you? You usually don't cave on things like this so easily.

Whatever, hope you aren't one of the one that is "never fishing with anyone that wears felt". I just bought some new boots with felt. I did the research but I never heard anything good about vibram so I went with felt again. Yes, in some cases, felt is just as slick as anything, mud, snow, etc. But that is not what they were designed for. But for those big slick river bottoms there is nothing better. And you are right, I have never wore vibram on those same rocks to know for sure, but I can do research and figure that out on my own.

Yes felt probably does harbor some invasives, but there are a lot of things that we carry that spread the same thing. I should use vibram and risk busting my butt, but I can still use the same waders, line, flies, belt, gloves, laces, uppers and nets without any concern? Something is wrong with this. And if the entire fishing industry is so against this, and it's such a bad thing to use felt, then why was I able to purchase a brand new pair of boots with felt?

You can't just change one thing and expect everything to be a goody goody. But go ahead and pat yourself on the back for ruining a perfectly good pair of wading sandals................oh and adding all that smoke into the atmosphere. Retard.

[ness]

http://stopans.org/P...dgeofDidymo.pdf

b. should all be personally responsible for preventing the spread of didymo, or if a government entity should step in and do something about it, since every time it is left up to humans to do the right thing on their own, they invariably don't.

Wait -- ain't the government currently run by humans? Are they different than the ones outside doing the wrong thing every time?

Looks like this thread has jumped the shark. Bye-bye fellers -- it's off to read up on didymo on my own.

[stlfisher]

I wear felt, but will buy an alternative for my next pair. In the meantime I will clean my equipment between uses. I usually rinse of my boots at the stream (keeps the car clean too) then clean further at home.

If you want to get technical the real problem is not felt, but anglers not cleaning there equipment between uses. I have yet to see my felt boots walk to the stream without my help. I haven't seen them get up an clean themselves either. Well besides the time I ate those mushrooms.

Clean your stuff and the problem is diminished if not manageable.

[fishinwrench]

Where is the research that felt soles really add any traction? I have busted my butt on the banks many more times with felt soles than I have in the river with regular boots. Grass, Frosted Grass, Mud, Snow, Sleet are all just as slick or slicker with felt soles.

I fished for years with regular waders and rubber soles with no more events than I do now with felt. I wet wade and float in Crocs now and they seem to have good traction. Before, I wet waded in tennis shoes and some of the plastic soles would get slick. I duck hunt in rubber soles with no problems.

Why is everyone stuck on felt?

Fine, in that case then, YOU are allowed to travel the globe and wade in far away streams in the same set of boots....the rest of us with our felt soles will fish predominantly in our own region, and IF we travel to fish in another time zone we'll buy a pair of non-felts to wear while we are there. The point is not whether or not felt is capable of hosting organisms, but that the BANNING of it is unpractical.

[strangercreek]

Well, should we start an argument about burning shoes with synthetic materials and the effects on the environment?

(Just giving you a hard time Wheatenheimer)

[FishinCricket]

Well, should we start an argument about burning shoes with synthetic materials and the effects on the environment?

(Just giving you a hard time Wheatenheimer)

LOL, tehee

and I'd give up fishing altogether if something I am doing is causing harm.

Well my PETA friends claim that you ARE doing the fish harm.... So what say you?

[troutfiend1985]

Well, I think I'm done with this one folks. I'll continue to use my felt soles. I have one for areas with didymo, and one for areas without. Tight lines

[eric1978]

I got up this morning and built a fire and threw my beloved felt sole sandals into the fire.

Whoever placed those sandals so perfectly on the fire deserves most of the credit for that awesome pic. Good job, that guy!

Wait -- ain't the government currently run by humans? Are they different than the ones outside doing the wrong thing every time?

That argument is a red herring, unless...

you deny the benefits of laws and consequences (established by government), and the impact they have on society (when implemented by government). How would our county look under anarchy? Hmmm, not so great. When people are allowed to do whatever they please, they eventually run amok...always.

[ozark trout fisher]

If you are really interested in helping to stop the spread of didymo and other invasive species, feel free to read the following articles. Some of you were asking for more info (proof) so I did a little research and found these articles. There are many more to read if you Google "Didymo and felt soles".

Didymo and felt soles studies.

Didymo Alert

NZ Fish & Game on Didymo

Studies on the survivability of the invasive diatom Didymosphenia geminata under a range of environmental and chemical conditions

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Thank you. I was hoping someone would actually cite some research instead of relying on insults and unsubstantiated claims.

There is enough there that I may consider changing my mind on this one. I have no intention on being a hold-out on this, I just wanted to see some evidence.

I still have one question though. If I have never fished anywhere that has Didymo since I bought my wading boots (and I have not), then why should I be concerned about spreading it? I check before I wade a new water to see if Didymo is present, and if it is I wouldn't wear my felt soles. I honestly don't see how you can say that I'm being irresponsible on this one. I would not do anything that I thought would risk spreading Didymo-I think that's very important. But I'd rather be careful to not use my felt soles in infected streams than throw them out altogether.

[Outside Bend]

Here, let me help you...

In their experiments felt soled boots that were examined 5 hours after use in infested waters contained nearly 3,000 times more live didymo cells than rubber soles (11,000 on felt vs. 3.9 on rubber). At 36 hours, a second careful cleaning yielded significant numbers of live cells from the felt soles and no live or dead cells from the rubber soles (290 on felt vs. 0 on rubber).

After 36 hours (not five), and two thorough cleanings, there were still live didymo cells present in felt soles, while none were present on rubber soles. To me, that's pretty substantial evidence that felt soles are tougher to keep clean than rubber. You may disagree if you like, but I tend to concur with the study, 290 is significantly more than zero.

So lets do a little analysis here, shall we? For sanity's sake, lets just accept blindly that this statement is conducted without monetary donations from either Simms or Orvis.

I'm sure Simms and Orvis are deep in the pockets of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. It would be ridiculous to blindly accept that New Zealand's South Island has been severely affected by introductions of didymo, and that perhaps managers and researchers want to simply gain a better understanding of the organism, its mode of transport, its means of introduction, and how to manage it.

And who says this is a boon to the wading boot industry? Redesigning boots, developing rubber compounds, retooling factories, replacing cheap materials like felt with expensive materials like rubber- those are all costs, and these businesses were not required to do it. They are looking out for their self-interest- their businesses rely on healthy fisheries, and healthy fisheries are jeopardized by aquatic invasives like didymo. Farmers don't make money when there's no crops to be had, turkey call manufacturers make no money when there's no turkeys to be shot, fishing boot manufacturers don't make money when there's nowhere to fish without encountering giant mats of algae. It makes business sense to look out for your long-term interests.

However not at one point in this website did I find any statistical analysis of the amount of didymo spread from those boots to uncontaminated water. I would expect to see something on this analysis if this organization was conducting a full research project.

You seriously can't figure out why a scientist wouldn't want to put didymo-laced boots into an uncontaminated waterway?

Nowhere did I find any evidence at all suggesting the necessary amount of didymo to infect another water

One.

and it seems that the organization was solely focused on showing the amount of live didymo on felt.

Because if there are live organisms on the felt, and the felt is being moved from stream to stream, it stands to reason the organisms are being moved from stream to stream, too. Felt can transport didymo, we don't want to transport didymo, that's why they're advocating we ban felt.

And I didn’t see the variables of ph level and the affects on water temperature or flooding.

I don't see the variables of moon phase and coarse woody debris by size class, because they're not relevant to whether felt soles transport didymo.

I take special note of "Even after 20 minutes of soaking, the disinfectant does not fully penetrate all areas of the felt sole" My question would then be, is there a significant amount of live didymo present in the deep areas of the felt? And if so, would this live didymo be able to remain alive while escaping this deep area felt and do so proficiently enough to contaminate a watershed?

If you're only spending 20 minutes fishing in your felt-soled boots, you may have a point. But an 8, 10, 12, hour day soaking in the river is going to allow didymo infested water to penetrate much deeper into a felt sole than a 20 minute soak in disinfectant. The outer layers may be clean, but the inside's still dirty, and the next long soak on a fishing trip will bring contaminated material into contact with the stream.

However, what about shoe laces, the uppers of wading boots and waders themselves?

Luckily your shoe laces, wading boot uppers, and waders themselves aren't made of felt, nor should they be spending the bulk of their day in contact with stream sediment. Those materials have less surface area, less interstitial space, and are much easier to keep clean and disinfected than the felt soles.