Bestard Wildwater Pro (wading) boots - a slightly cheaper alternative to the outstanding Bestard SA Pro Water Rescue (wading) boots

This is categorically not a review because I have worn these new Bestard Wildwater Pro boots precisely once, but I thought that some of you who have used or at least heard of the outstanding Bestard SA Pro Water Rescue boots might like to know that there is now a slightly cheaper version of them. These are not cheap boots in the first place, but as per my final review of them here, they did an incredible job for me and my fishing. Wearing heavy, clompy wading boots after fishing in the Bestard SA Pro Water Rescue boots is a bit like night and day with how much the Bestard boots feel like a really good pair of lighter weight hiking boots…………..

These new red Bestard Wildwater Pro boots belong to the same family of Bestard “water boots” as the ones I hammered for so long, but on these slightly cheaper boots you don’t get the inbuilt gravel guard. I was a fan of it on the yellow boots but of course we can easily do without it if you were BCWs which of course have their own gravel guards already. If you wet wade then having a pair of gravel guards on a pair of water boots is pretty handy, but to be honest I was still wearing a pair of Vision neoprene gravel guards with my Palm wetsuit leggings because to be perfectly honest the inbuilt gravel guards on the more expensive yellow Bestard SA Pro Water Rescue boots don’t keep all the fine sand and gravel out anyway.

So I can quite happily live without the inbuilt gravel guard. On these slightly cheaper red Bestard Wildwater Pro boots this then means that the boots don’t come up quite as high around the ankle area. I am not sure how much this might affect what bits and pieces get inside the boots when you are wearing BCWs and their inbuilt gravel guards might or might not do a good job on a lower-cut boot design. When I am wearing my Palm neoprene leggings it doesn’t matter anyway because as I said I am using the excellent Vision gravel guards anyway. If anything the main boot material on these newer red boots looks a bit more rugged than the yellow ones which I hammered so hard, but then again the material on those boots was never remotely a problem. I am a UK 11 foot and as with the other boots I have gone for a UK 13 pair of these boots and they fit well with BCWs and also the 4mm neoprene socks I use when I am wearing the wetsuit gear.

Time is going to tell of course, so I am going to start giving these slightly cheaper red Bestard Wildwater Pro boots a decent hammering and see where we get. What I do know is that I took the nearly two year old SupaTracks studs out of the extremely battered yellow Bestard SA Pro Water Rescue boots and screwed them into these new Bestard Wildwater Pro boots (details here). For sure the actual studs look very discoloured, but I can’t see a single sign of wear on the actual tips of these amazing studs so I see no reason not to use them again. Please note that I have linked to the UK supplier of these boots in this blog post because this is the place to go if you want some. These are not affiliate links but that’s not remotely the point. The yellow Bestard SA Pro Water Rescue boots were a revelation so I am naturally very interested to see how the slightly cheaper version might work out for me…………….

My original yellow Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue boots with my Palm neoprene leggings and the Vision gravel guards