Simms to sell felt soles boots again!

Angling Trade has learned that Simms Fishing Products told its sales representatives, and is now informing dealers, that the company plans to reintroduce boots with felt soles in its 2012 product lineup. You may remember that just a couple years ago, Simms was the company that beat the drum loudest about going felt-free, and swore off production of felt-soled boots after 2010.
As most of you know, felt has been associated with the spread of aquatic invasive species? nasty things like New Zealand mud snails, didymo (rock snot), as well as the parasite that causes whirling disease. In some states, the threats have been taken seriously enough that felt is no longer allowed. You can?t fish in felt in Maryland or Vermont, and starting next year, felt will be banned in Alaska.
The science hasn?t changed, but neither did consumers? and dealers? attitudes toward wearing felt?there are still many felt stalwarts who contend there is no adequate substitute for traction in a river. And apparently, a good number of dealers claimed they had plenty of customers who could not be sold on felt alternatives.
As such, Simms director of marketing and brand management Diane Bristol said that the company labored over the decision, but ultimately yielded to the demands of customers, specifically dealers, who said they needed felt in the arsenal.
?It?s ultimately about choices, and allowing customers to make their choices on boots with felt,? said Bristol. ?We didn?t take this decision lightly, but ultimately it came down to listening to what our customers wanted.?
Which many will assume means it came down to a matter of money? not just for Simms, but also for dealers.
Simms says it is not disengaging from the invasive species fight by any means. Plans are to reintroduce felt on only three boot models, and the company also intends to amp up efforts to inform consumers about the need to wade clean through additional literature and labeling.
Still, Simms will get plenty of flak for the turnaround, and no doubt expects it. But keep in mind that other major boot makers like Orvis, Patagonia, and Korkers, kept right on chugging with felt production in recent years. So don?t expect any stones thrown from glass houses.
Thus, the Simms turnabout is less of a head fake, and more a situation where Simms tried to lead the market across the avenue, then got caught alone in traffic when the lights changed.
Hopefully, the industry as a whole, takes a harder closer look at the felt issue? not necessarily to regulate, rather to amp up efforts to inform the public about the effects of invasive species.
In truth, aquatic nuisances can be transported in many boot materials, not just felt. In some ways, the notion that an angler got a ?free pass? from cleaning boots by buying models with rubber soles was as dangerous as it will be to allow responsible choices and encourage responsible care regarding felt.
Now the choices are more open. It will be interesting to see where consumers, retailers, and manufacturers all go with them.

Translation: "Our profit margin on wading boots has fallen since we got rid of felt soles, so we're bringing them back." :roll:

"The sciense hasn't changed..." NO, no it hasn't. :mad: The "new" boots capture and transport invasive species just like felt boots will, just only in the upper part of the boot. If you don't clean/dry them properly like you should with ANY boot, they really aren't a whole lot better than felt wrt transporting invasive species, yet traction stinks compared to felt. :???:

Glad to see they finally got some common sense! (even if it took loos of profit to "see the light")

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Originally Posted by CO_Flyfisher

"The sciense hasn't changed..." NO, no it hasn't. :mad: The "new" boots capture and transport invasive species just like felt boots will, just only in the upper part of the boot. If you don't clean/dry them properly like you should with ANY boot, they really aren't a whole lot better than felt wrt transporting invasive species, yet traction stinks compared to felt. :???:

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Seems like the key to addressing the problem really centers on spending quality time on the unsexy task of cleaning our gear properly and regularly, and not just replacing it with lesser gear that still can perpetuate the problem, but makes us feel better about it.

I think it is also a safety issue.

If a manufacturer removes a safer product and replaces it with a product that is less safe and if their advertisements and representatives have said it is just as good (Simms has made this claim) for wading as the former product, I think it opens Simms up to law suits. It can either say it was wrong and rubber is NOT as safe as felt OR it can offer felt. If Simms instead offers felt, it has a weak defense in that it is the angler's choice as to what they buy.

I wonder if the liability issue was considered. Orvis says that rubber is not as good as felt and Orvis does not even sell rubber soles WITHOUT studs.

So I guess Simms went to the School of Hard Knocks! sometimes it don't pay to get on the bandwagon with others. Getting involved with these groups or organization trying to banned felt soles has cost Simms a good chunk of profit over the last few years. Simms thought they could take advantages of the situation for their capital gains, well I guess not.

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Originally Posted by popperfly

So I guess Simms went to the School of Hard Knocks! sometimes it don't pay to get on the bandwagon with others. Getting involved with these groups or organization trying to banned felt soles has cost Simms a good chunk of profit over the last few years. Simms thought they could take advantages of the situation for their capital gains, well I guess not.

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They just lost my business.

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Originally Posted by redietz

They just lost my business.

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They just got mine.

Brad

How about someone doing some research on a product that we can use to clean all our gear? Oh well that's probably beyond the politicos & money mongers.

With respect to didymo, cleaning gear is fairly easy. Warm water with dish detergent works fine as the detergent kills the didymo cells. Also, drying out the boots and waders completely works too, since didymo dries out and dies. Salt water will kill it as well, so if your boots and waders can deal with salt water, you can put 'em in brine. The issue with felt is that it takes much much longer to dry out the felt sole then the rest of the gear (or get the soap into the sole, where the didymo can "hide"). If you go from one water shed to another in the same day, you can track it no matter what gear you're using on the laces, etc. If, however, you dry your boots out by the heater over night thinking you're doing your bit, then go to a new area the next day, sure your upper boot and waders are sanitised, but the inner parts of the felt sole may still be damp, etc.

That, in a nut shell, is the guts of the argument for banning felt here in NZ. Even if you try and clean and dry your gear, felt just makes it too hard to do so.

Now, the science behind all of the above is sound. Yes, didymo will live much longer in the sole of felt boots then it does on the other parts of the boots or waders. Where the concern is, however, is that the science they cite as the reason for banning felt soles is the "wrong" science. The science they need to conduct is "how much spread of didymo is a direct result of transfer by felt soled wading boots"? Rather than, say, tramper's boots, boats (canoes, kyacks, outboard motors, etc), vehicles, peoples pets, swimming gear, etc. If felt soles are a major player then great, but remember the above science doesn't address that issue, it only addresses whether or not didymo survives longer in the felt soles. It does not address the issue of whether or not this translates to a high incidence of didymo transfer. For that, you need to examine whether or not wet boots do often move from one water system to another. You would have to examine angler behaviour, since it is the angler that moves the boots. It may be that anglers tend to remain in a single water system, so even if their boots get "infected", they are not transfering didymo to a new area as they move around. When the typical angler shifts to a new water system, the time between fishing trips may generally be long enough that even the soles dry out sufficiently, therefore rendering transfer by the soles highly unlikely). Boats, however, may tend to retain water for much longer, increasing the liklihood (and volume) of contamination. Hikers are more likely to cover large distances, through moutain regions, and therefore may be more likly to track material to separate water systems (should we ban hiking boots?). And so forth. In other words, yes, banning felt does ban a potential carrier, but there is no evidence that felt soles were the major carrier, or even a highly probable carrier, compared to all the other potential carriers, which were not banned.

Good science provides us with information. Misunderstanding what that information tells us is not the fault of the science. Unfortunately, deliberate misrepresentation of science is becomming more common in various forms of propoganda or by the press to sell more papers. Ironically, this leads to an increase in the mistrust of scientists rather than an increased mistrust in policy makers or reporters. Go figure.

- Jeff

Simms is doing nothing wrong in my opinion by bring back felt. I feel it is a safer way to wade over rubber soles. We anglers need to be responsible and do our part and clean them properly. This is no different then having alcohol or guns at our disposal for example. We can ban them or we can be responsible with their use. In my view responsibility is the way to go.

What concerns me about the entire subject of invasive species - didymo, mud snails, whirling disease, etc. - is that it is presumed that anglers are the main cause of the spread of these organisms. In reality, on most waterways anglers make up a rather insignificant percentage of the total number of water users. We have swimmers, tubers, kayakers, rafters, water boarders, canoers, and a plethora of pleasure boaters. Each of these water users has a greater potential of transporting invasive species than the angling public. This is not to mention the waterfowl, cormorants, pelicans, ospreys, eagles and other water birds that routinely move from drainage to drainage.
This is not to encourage anglers to be lax in their concern about transporting invasive species from one place to another, but the reality is that we are only a very small part of the problem. In addition, while we do not desire to introduce these pests into more and more places it's like Pandora's Box, we have let them out and it is unlikely that we will be able to completely contain them. Fortunately, God has made the creatures in this creation quite adaptable and althought these things do have an impact on our recreation the sky is not falling and life as we know it will not end because of these things.

Conspiracy Theory

Wearing felt on the river is the only thing that comes close to traction on a slippery river bead. Everything else is playing catch up. The need for something that is better for the environment has greatly excelled past the research and development to replace felt (if there ever was one). But felt is a known carrier of bugs and stuff so the knee jerked and the ban (in areas) was implemented. So the manufactures of wading boots stopped the felt soles and went with the latest and greatest umm no wait I got it the latest and greatest umm rubber and screw studs or just studs and sent fly fishermen out to have an open competition of the best imitation of Charley Brown kicking a football. So when the latest retiree of the law firm of Dowe, Screwum, & Howe went on his first trip to the water in his early retirement came in first in the Charley Brown contest (and he didn’t even know he was entered) while floating down the river (if he was in the river competition and not the parking lot competition) he had time to contemplate how he was going to get those guys at (Manufacture’s Name Here)

Felt is just safer to use and nothing replacing it has come close enough to warrant a compromise and in closing was there any development and research done before the knee jerked and the foot slipped and Charley went past horizontal arms whirling fast enough to support himself against gravity till he realizes it was futile, corrects to horizontal and drops for a perfect 10.

Or if you don’t like that one someone from (Manufacture’s Name Here) got a day off and went fishing and entered a Charley Brown contest and when he washed ashore or woke up and thought holy cow we could get sued.

I am also glad to see that Simms is going to offer felt soles for sale again in the future. It can't be soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

This coming week, I'm going into Yellowstone National Park to procure my motorized boat permit. Motorized boats are allowed on Yellowstone and Lewis Lakes in the Park. While I keep my boat extremely clean, I know that many other people do not. When I got my permit there last year I was told they normally have someone to inspect the cleanliness of your boat before issuing you the permit. However, no one was available to do the inspection at the time so I got the permit without an inspection being done. This year, I picked up the application form for the permit a couple weks ago (when there was still ice on the lakes) and did not have my boat with me, but was told I could have purchased the permit then. It seems to me that if the Park Service is serious about controlling the spread of invasive species (including fish) they should do a thorough inspection of boats (and probably any bait buckets in them at the time as well!).

John,
Part of the problem is no one is inspecting the tires on the boat trailers, under the rims of the tires, other "parts" which get wet but are not inspected either. The whole thing has become a huge joke...which you so well illustrated.
Hugs,
LF

Yes - it's like no one wants to address the elephant in the room, but are all over the poor mouse!

Best regards, Dave S.