Back in March I blogged about three different sets of boots that I was going to put through their paces this year and see where I got to with them, so because it’s now November and I reckon I’ve had enough time to form my opinions I thought it might be of interest to report back. If you want to know what I’m on about then please go back and read the original blog post here.

So first off let’s go with the cheapest option, the Amblers FS006C Metal Free Safety Boots which at the time cost me £39.99 plus postage from Screwfix. I chose not to put any studs into the soles of these boots because I wanted to use them primarily for estuaries and beaches where I didn’t need extra grip as such. The boots have held up well but when they are wet they are noticeably heavy to walk around in, and to be perfectly honest I’m getting no more from these boots than I did with the original Dunlop Dakota Mens Safety boots - check here for one of the blog posts on them. I do like the fact that the eyelets on the more expensive Amblers boots have nothing to rust, but with how cheap the Dunlops are I can live with their eyelets rusting up over time - and to be honest when the eyelets on the Dunlops got really rusty I tore the metal bits out with pliers and carried on using them just fine. Job done then but if I’m looking for a pair of boots like these to press into service then I’m going with the Dunlops.

Next up are the boots that I really wanted to work partly because via my work with Savage Gear I can get hold of them for nothing and it would be handy if they were brilliant. I have tried my absolute best to really like these lightweight Scierra X-Force wading boots, but I can’t, or at least I can’t with them in this particular configuration (cleated sole). If I could get these boots with rubber soles but no studs already in them, which gives me the option to put my own wading studs in? I’d be far more interested, but they come with a mass of oversize studs already in them and I find them fairly awkward when walking on rocks especially. The sizing is a little generous but go for your shoe size, tighten the laces up, and they fit pretty well. Perhaps what I need to try here is the felt soled version and then put my own studs in. These Scierra X-Force wading boots do have potential for me, but I would need to get the felt soled ones and start this process again.

Now we come to the boots which I was always most interested in, the Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots. I put another post up about them back in May and I have worn them a hell of a lot this year. In the original wading boot post earlier this year I detailed the exact configuration of studs that I put into the soles of these boots, and apart from one stud inexplicably coming out fairly quickly, what you can see below is how the soles on these boots are now. I haven’t replaced the lost stud and I haven’t adjusted any of them from day one. For sure they look a bit worse for wear, but these studs from SupaTracks just last and last however battered they look. When it comes to grip these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots with the studs I have put in are bloody brilliant.

And so are the boots themselves, albeit they are not quite perfect and there are a few minor design flaws which don’t make much sense to me. Used as wading boots for a lot of the sort of saltwater fishing I do then these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots are about as good as it gets for me, and that includes me wearing them with a thick pair of socks when I’m not wearing BCWs to go wrasse fishing etc. I dread to think how many miles I have walked in these boots and they are easily as comfortable and easy to move around in as a good pair of hiking boots, indeed they don’t feel like wearing traditional wading boots at all. The one thing I did find after a hell of a lot of shorter sessions with them out on the rocks and so on was that I found my feet started to ache a bit in them when I started to use them for my co-guiding work over in Ireland this year - which to be fair revolves around a hell of a lot of hours on your feet for multiple days. I changed over to a pair of the Orvis Pro wading boots which are so good I kinda keep them for special occasions, and for really long periods of time on my feet I do prefer not to wear these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots. I got back home after my guiding work though and I went straight back to these Bestard ones and they feel great - IF I’m not on my feet for hours and hours on end which I don’t tend to be when I’m out just fishing and not guiding.

Keep an eye on sand and grit collecting under these flaps - easily hosed out mind you

I really like the built-in gravel guards and they do a pretty good job of keeping a lot of gunk out of the inside of the boots when used in conjunction with gravel guards on BCWs. A few hours spent surf fishing with lots of fine sand being tossed around does end up with me needing to hose the inside of the boots out, but I’d expect this anyway, and far more so with conventional wading boots. One little area which does collect sand and grit is underneath the flaps which the eyelets sit on, but again it’s no more than a case of getting a hose in there and flushing them out.

The metal eyelets which I believe are made from stainless steel are holding up pretty well until you go looking very closely. Externally I can only see a few small signs of rust, but it’s when you go looking inside the boots and underneath the flap I described above where you can now see that the backs of all the eyelets which are secured into the boots are all showing signs of rust. I don’t know if this is going to be a problem longer-term, but I do look after these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots and I wash them down in freshwater on a fairly regular basis. I am not an eyelet material or rate of rusting expert, but I don’t quite get why the outside of the eyelets seem to be made from a different material to what I think are the rivet parts of them on the inside of the boots. Surely this is a flaw?

Again though, the boots seem to be holding up really well, and they mostly look as good as new save for a little bit of the front of one of the boots ever so slightly “peeling” away from the boot itself. The original laces which worked well with the locking style eyelet gave out relatively early on so I changed over to paracord laces which never seem to break, but slightly annoyingly the round profile of these paracord laces meant that I can no longer use the locking style eyelet. This will make no sense to you unless you have a pair of these boots yourself.

A few signs of external rust, and this is the locking eyelet I am on about

I went for the largest size available in the UK to allow for BCWs - size 13, I am a UK 11 shoe size - and whilst they fit well when I’m wearing waders, you need to bear in mind that I always wear very thin liner-style socks when I wear waders. These boots fit fine but if I wanted to wear thicker socks then the fit would start to get pretty snug. If you like wearing thicker socks and you want to get a pair of these boots then I’d be tempted to go three sizes over your UK shoe size. I don’t so I’m fine. If it’s any help at all I have had four pairs of these thin socks here since July 2012 (I checked my Amazon order history!), I only wear them with waders, I alternate between them, and all four pairs genuinely look as good as new. I don’t know what the hell these socks are made of but they are amazing.

So would I buy another pair of these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots to use as wading boots if I got to the end of the year and they suddenly fell apart? Yes is the simple answer. For the kind of mobile fishing I do then these are the best boots I have come across after a lot of years now wearing BCWs and wading boots. A bit of rust on the inside of the eyelets aside, which unless they suddenly fall apart doesn't seem to be much of a problem, these boots basically look almost as good as new. Most of you don’t know me but I have basically never come across anybody who goes through shoes and boots like I do - I am not lightweight, I walk a lot, and I walk fast. Hell, many moons ago I was politely asked to never come back to Blacks in Plymouth because the hiking boots I used to buy for rock fishing kept failing on me in no time at all and I think the manager at the time had had enough of me complaining!

I am very obviously not a young gazelle, but I certainly feel like one when I am moving around over all kinds of fishing surfaces in these boots. If you are used to traditional and often pretty heavy wading boots then these things are going to feel incredible. That’s where I’m at with my trying out the three different pairs of boots in 2021, hope my finding might prove useful to a few of you here. Please let me know if you have got the Bestard boots especially, how are you getting on with them? Roll on England v South Africa tomorrow, you all have a good weekend.

This is where I’m at with the various wading boots I’ve been trying this year

© Henry Gilbey 2023