If you follow this blog then you might remember me talking about wet-wading with neoprene leggings and so on. The gear obviously works and in many respects it makes a lot of sense to me - but there were always a few niggles holding me back from wholeheartedly loving the concept here in the UK and Ireland when our waters are not exactly warm and our weather is changeable at the very least……….

I don’t particularly like getting wet feet and lower legs especially and then fishing like this for potentially hours on end, even if they do warm up with the wetsuit lettings and the feet inside wading boots or water-type shoes. I can live with it, but I don’t love it. What did stop me going all out with the neoprene leggings approach though was the amount of gear I then needed to dry out when I got home after fishing - neoprene leggings, socks, potentially neoprene socks, shorts, pants, and most likely whatever top I am wearing if water has splashed above my waist and I wasn’t wearing a waterproof top. Over time I found it too annoying and I was definitely not excited by putting on wet fishing gear if I haven’t got time to dry all the stuff out for the next time I go fishing.

So I basically live in BCWs for the bulk of my lure fishing (Breathable Chest Waders if that helps), but in reality I don’t actually need what chest waders can do for me a lot of the time - if they are keeping me dry and not leaking that is. I don’t care how much you spend on BCWs, they are going to leak at some point. Whether that be a week or a month or a year down the line, they are easy things to damage with what we put them through, but I can’t do without them. Or can I?

I do way more estuary fishing than I used to these days, and with an increasingly ninja approach I am very rarely actually in the water anyway. I could wear a pair of wellies but I often find myself kneeling down in mud or on bladderwrack or in shallow water, plus when it rains I’d like to be able to sling a waterproof jacket on and know that I am fully covered up to comfortably carry on fishing. I kinda wear BCWs most of the time without really thinking about it, but I don’t usually need what BCWs can do for me with this type of fishing. Same with some of the open coast stuff I do, and so on.

When I last fished out in SW Portugal I made the decision to wear a pair of the Vision Koski breathable waist waders instead of leggings etc., as per the photo above (let’s call them BWWs to make life easier). They worked absolutely perfectly in a range of different temperatures, they are so easy to move around in, and I am seriously not interested in wearing BCWs out there in case the shit hits the fan in some potentially scary seas. You do not want to end up in the water in SW Portugal, but if I do I’d far rather be in BWWs than BCWs (see this blog post here about how much easier it is to swim and move around if you end up in the water in BWWs over BCWs).

As good as those Vision Koski BWWs are though, you’re looking at around the £180-200 mark for them. They are bloody good, but as with BCWs, they are going to fail at some point. I have worn the cheaper, roughly £150 Kinetic X5 BWWs a bit as well, as per the photo above, and I like them. They feel pretty heavy duty though, and are not as easy to move around in as the more expensive Vision Koski BWWs. So I went looking, and specifically so after a mate got me thinking about it all the other day.

Turns out that there are a bunch of “budget” pairs of BWWs out there if you do a bit of research. I hesitate to refer to £100 and under as a “budget” price, but with what you can spend on a pair of BWWs if you want to - check out these Simms ones here, ouch! - I feel like we are on fair ground here. I am perfectly happy with the roughly £150 price of those Kinetic X5 BWWs, but I wonder if I can find a slightly lighterweight and more flexible pair for that £100 price point and under? Since I have a bit of experience with Kinetic waders now I decided to try a pair of the £99.99 Kinetic X4 BWWs and see how they get on for me.

So it’s very early days with these Kinetic X4 BWWs, but they are indeed lighter and easier to wear than the more expensive X5 BWWs, and I find moving around in them to be so efficient (gazelle?!). I can’t imagine that they are going to last for ages with the sort of fishing I am putting them through, but for £99.99 and how useful they can be? I reckon I can take that. Okay, so you need a pair of wading boots, but I have them anyway, and I find this BWWs way of doing things a lot more comfortable and easy than the neoprene based approach. The only thing I need to do when I get home is turn the BWWs inside out to dry out any sweat based moisture that always tends to build up in waders, and my wading boots live outside because it’s always easier putting on wading boots which are wet rather than dry.

Thanks to Dave from Labrax Mafia for this shot of me fishing in these Kinetic X4 BWWs

I will report back after a lot more time with these stockingfoot Kinetic X4 BWWs, but now that I have got back into the swing of BWWs I am reminded how useful they are (from experience of trying a few different pairs of boot-foot waders I avoid them because the boots always seem to be so crap). BWWs such as these Kinetic X4 BWWs come with neoprene socks on them (if you go looking for BWWs, make sure to buy the stockingfoot versions) like you get with the sort of BCWs we use, and you will need a belt to use with them to secure the somewhat voluminous waist around you. I am usually an XL size and the XL version of these Kinetic X4 BWWs fit me really well - but you need that belt to tighten them up. A belt is provided in the box by the way, but I don’t like it much and I far prefer these specific types of canvas belts for my jeans and shorts and BWWs etc. Time will tell how long these particular BWWs last and I am hesitant to call £100 throwaway money when life never stops getting more expensive - but with how much I rely on waders for the fishing I do? Makes more and more sense to me the more I think about it………………

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I am not suggesting that around £100 is in any way throwaway money, but a cheapish pair of breathable waist waders makes SO much sense to me

© Henry Gilbey 2023