The other day I wrote a blog post about wading boots and how I see them in terms of the fishing I do so much of, and by hook or by crook I have now got three different pairs of boots here that I am going to use as wading boots this year. You may well be wondering if I can possibly find any faults or flaws in three different pairs of boots during the course of a year, but you honestly have no idea how hard I am on shoes and boots - if there are any issues that come to light via these boots getting a proper hammering in and around saltwater I can assure you that I will find them. I would hazard a guess that a number of you here are undecided on what boots might or might not work for your own fishing, so I’ll have a good go at my experiment and keep you posted from time to time on here. Judging by the positive response to the reel review video thing I put up on Monday - big thank you! - I might even end up trying to do some video stuff on the different boots in due course………………

First up are these £39.99 Amblers FS006C Metal Free Safety Boots that I bought from Screwfix. I am a UK11 shoe size so I went for a size 14 to generously allow for the neoprene socks on my BCWs and they fit really well, but I reckon a size 13 would have fitted just fine. I had put a bunch of the rather excellent SupaTracks studs in the bottom of these boots but in fact I have now removed them and I am going to use these pretty cheap boots when I have no need for really good grip - beaches, some estuary stuff etc. I will treat these Amblers boots no differently to any other boots I’d use for my bass fishing, and I have to say that they feel really comfortable and easy to wear when I am trussed up in my BCWs and moving around. Bearing in mind that I will be chopping and changing between wading boots and that my boots mostly stay wet and live outside, for the price of £39.99 I am interested to see if these things last as well as those Dunlop boots I have used so much. Give me more time in the Amblers, but I am pretty sure they are a bit more comfortable again than the Dunlops to fish in.

Scierra X-Force wading boots, the studded sole version

The second pair are these Scierra X-Force wading boots which arrived the other day thanks to my connections at Savage Gear and Svendsen Sport. I went for the UK11 because I have been told by enough people that they are sized to allow for wearing waders, and in fact if anything they are a touch too big. A kind person left a really informative comment on that wading boot blog post, and exactly as he says you can definitely feel that one particular stud doesn’t feel quite right where it sits, plus over many years now a stud sitting right below the ball of my foot has never felt right anway. You will need to read Karl Blanford’s comment on that blog post to better understand, but rather than cut the offending two studs down (I have two feet!), I actually managed to pull the studs out of the soles with a pair of pliers and no amount of grunting. I also took his advice and put an extra pair of soles inside the boots, and now they fit and feel a whole lot better again. I obviously need some proper time with these Scierra X-Force wading boots, and as I said I will report back, but these things are the only boots here that are sold as wading boots, so let’s see how they do. They are very light, with that many studs the grip should be good, and I have heard enough good reports about these things out on the rocks to hold out a decent amount of hope that they will give me a decent bit of life. I didn’t pay for these boots but I can find them online for around the £120-£150 mark so they aren’t remotely a budget option like the Amblers safety boots above.

And now we come to the third and final pair of boots that I am pressing into service, and I am easily the most excited about these things. A few years ago I started to hear a little bit about a Spanish shoe brand called Bestard which I believe hand makes all their shoes and boots in Majorca. At the time they made and indeed still do make a high-end water rescue/canyoneering boot called the Canyon Guide, but for all my looking around I just couldn’t find enough UK based information about whether they were worth a serious go in saltwater to pull the trigger and take a punt on them. I left the idea of Bestard boots alone until my wading boot blog post the other day and a lad kindly left a link on there to a pair of Bestard boots called the Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots which had the words “stainless steel eyelets for saltwater environments” in the description here.

The saltwater version Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots

I did a bit of reading around and it seems that these rather good looking Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots are a proper saltwater version of their Canyon Guide boots. Was now the time to pull the trigger and take a not inexpensive punt on a pair of these? I was very close to clicking on the Add to Cart button when I thought why not give the company who were selling these boots in the UK a shout and ask a bunch of questions I had about them. These R3 Safety and Rescue people could not have been more helpful or more forthcoming, and it turns out that they are the official Bestard people here in the UK. We got to talking and I explained how I was intending to use these water rescue boots as wading boots in my saltwater fishing world and were they worth a punt and so on. At the end of the day I didn’t need to buy the boots because a very kind person offered to send me a pair to try out - they seemed to be as interested as I was as in whether these boots would hold up to bass fishing. I want to say a big thank you, and you need to know that with the useful information I got from these people about these boots I’d have put the phone down and bought a pair anyway, plus I have had a few messages and comments from a few European anglers who have been using these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots as wading boots and they are all raving about them.

Again they are not a budget option, but compared to a top of the range pair of Simms or Patagonia or Orvis wading boots these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots are far cheaper. I went for a UK size 13 in these boots and with a pair of BCWs on they fit great with my UK11 feet. I have been for a couple of dog walks on the beach in these boots (I’ve got a pair of neoprene socks which simulate wearing BCWs) and I have also been out for a speculative fish out on the rocks in them as well. It’s very early days of course, but wearing these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots feels exactly like wearing a pair of your favourite and extremely comfortable hiking boots - they just don’t feel remotely like a pair of clunky wading boots at all, and I really like the extra features such as the gravel gator which I think might be a really useful extra way of keeping sand and grit out, the “lace stash”, and how you can pull the laces tight, lock them off, then finish off cross-wrapping and tying the laces.

These boots feel and look seriously well made, I have put a bunch of the SupaTracks studs in the soles (4 x 3000A SupaTracks studs in each heel, 8 x 3000B SupaTracks studs in the front soles to be precise), they are very unlike regular wading boots, and whilst I didn’t have to pay for them at least I can give them a decent hammering and report back on here to tell you how they are doing. I hope this might prove useful. Have a read of that wading boot blog post from the other day and you will understand how I don’t think that a lot of what are sold as wading boots are remotely fit for saltwater purpose especially, so I am genuinely fascinated to see if these incredibly comfortable and hiking boot like water rescue boots could be a worthwhile option in our fishing world. Lots more to come, roll on the bass fishing……….

I’m going to put three rather different pairs of wading boots through the ringer this year and see where I end up

© Henry Gilbey 2023