Felt banning

JC’s piece was good and thought provoking today. However …

Felt wouldn’t need to be banned, or feared, if people would take responsibility for themselves, and disinfect their equipment; boots, lines, waders, boats, etc., each time they were used. People who are so VERY particular about the rods they use (read: brand name), and the waders they use (again read: brand name), and the boots they use (yep, got cha again!), are so totally lax in the prevention of the spread of insidious water-born infestations.

Don’t go tromping through infected waters, and proceed directly to other waters. Don’t drag your boat, or pontoon, or any other water craft, out of one area, and directly in to another. Clean everything as though the life of the river/stream/lake depended on it. Because, it does.

I guess we need to disinfect those great blue herons and ducks and geese and bears and deer and…anything else that travels to and from different waters.

I read someplace that ‘life finds a way’ (Michael Crighton in Jurrassic Park, I think?). It’s pretty obvious to anyone that will take the time to look at the history of life that this is true.

We as a species have had zero success stopping the ‘spread’ of anything.

Primarily because it’s beyond both our control and our abilities.

Even the things that directly affect our lives tend to have to be allowed to ‘run their course’.

The nasty stuff WILL get to the places where it can thrive. It will kill some fish, change some things. But the environment will survive it. The fish that live will be stronger. We’ll learn to deal with the changes.

We are quick to believe that we are ‘responsible’ for everything bad that happens, a form of our basic conceit. We are also conceited to the point of idiocy if we think that something as silly as a ‘law’ can stop the spread of a life form.

Pass the laws. Clean until you are wrinkled and everything shines like a new penny.

May slow things down. But the ‘bad stuff’ will come. Life finds a way.

Buddy

The Camel’s nose is now under the corner of the tent. The list of evils the enviro-whackos and animal rights whackos are going to find to ban and villify will be endless to the point we will be banned from using the waters alltogether.

Most every evil that has been perpetrated upon society has been “for our own good”.

Jeff

Come on, you guys! Obviously we can’t eliminate ALL the horrid things that befall us, but if one little umpff that we can do will slow it down, and maybe ONLY transmitted by the herons, moose, etc, than wouldn’t that make it a BIT better? Maybe prolong the day, or make the infestation less, wouldn’t it be worth TRYING?

Yes, we do have a personal responsibility.

<just cuz you know death is inevitable, doesn’t mean you should aim your car at the pedestrian today!!>

Betty,

There in lies the ‘problem’.

Will everyone ‘clean’ as you suggest? No. It would be ‘nice’, but the facts are the facts. Responsible fishermen do. Not all of us are responsible. (I’m not saying we shouldn’t clean our gear and just give up. I will, you will, but many just won’t).

So, ‘passing a law’ is what comes next. ‘If those darn folks won’t even clean their gear, we’ll have to punish them by making it illegal for them to use X’.

Then, when the infestation occurs, as it surely will, the blame comes back to us, because we had to have just ‘ignored’ the law (they never add money for enforcement of such things, so since they didn’t check everyone’s gear, the assumption is that lots of folks disobeyed the new ‘law’, thus ‘causing’ the problem).

So, we couldn’t stop it. We are going to get blamed for it regardless. AND, we are losing some of our freedom to no good purpose.

THAT is the larger issue here. Freedom is what is important to me. Not the fish. Not the stream.

We have too many odd, useless, but well intentioned ‘laws’ out there. All of them infringe a bit on our most precious resource, freedom.

We all seem to want things to either remain as they are or go back to what they ‘were’ when it was ‘better’. Change is a fact. We didn’t cause it. We can’t stop it. All we can do is deal with it as it comes.

Buddy

Yes, we are responsible for spreading “nasty stuff”. New Zealand mud snails did not get here by themselves. I keep an extra pair of boots for use only on infested streams in my area.

" It will kill some fish, change some things. But the environment will survive it. The fish that live will be stronger."

That might only take a few hundred years. And the fish that survive might all be catfish and suckers.

I’m not sure government regulation will do anything to stop or even slow down the didymo algae. Undoubtly nature will find a way to adapt. But we as
sportsmen/sportswomen still have to at least try to do our part to protect a dwindling resorce

In the readers cast section of this weeks FAOL i wrote on this subject . I contacted local ,state and federal agencies ,to date there is no bans proposed, because like us they are dealing with to many unknowns. TU has asked wader manufactures to volentarly stop making felt soled waders by 2012

Is there any proof that didymo alge or mud snails, or any other nasties have been spread by felt soled boots or have been introduced to new waters by felt soled boots?

Now, when I go tracking sand across my wife’s clean kitchen floor, there are nasty things said, but has there really been evidence that these things are being introduced by the use of felt soles?’

I’m asking seriously. I do not know the answer and reckon I could go google it and read up on it, but I am assuming some of the folks here have already done the research.

thanks,

Jeff

yes there is proof it only takes on cell of this invader to spread .not just felt but life jacketts ,boats ,float tubes even fly lines can and do spread it. as lond as it stays wet it can grow

I find it almost hilarious that (some)humans think they(or others) are the cause of everything and that government can somehow fix these ‘problems’…while nature has done quite well on it’s own.
Global Warming: BOGUS! We may be having a natural trend toward ‘climate change’ but the Earth has done this already NUMEROUS times on it’s own already. To think we are the cause and can fix it is quite delusional.

I’m almost thinking the same when it comes to this kind of stuff. I’m not convinced felt on the sole of wading boots is the cause of all these ‘evils’ just because someone has a good theory…OR…THEIR GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY TO STUDY THIS IS COMING UP FOR RE-EXAMINATION!
I have lost all faith in anything “environmental”. The boy has cried wolf a few many times for me to salivate like Pavlov’s dogs and come running to the rescue!!! Whether this is real or not, the environmental community can blame itself for the attitudes and reactions of the rest of us. We are sick and tired of the ‘boy that cried wolf’…and planted evidence of these same wolves(or Candian Lynx in this case) in studies to get land designated off limits to humans because it houses an animal on the endangered species list. You environmentalists have reaped what you have sowed.

Wulf some of what your saying i agree with but ignoring enviromental problems wont make them go away. If a problem exists that IS of our making arn’t we as stweards of the earth an suposably the inteligent speicies obligated to try and controll the damage WE cause.

I don’t believe a word the environmental community has to say any longer.

Remember DDT? :
Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote “Dr. DeWitt’s now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched.” DeWitt’s 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the “control”" birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt’s report that “control” pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs.

Remember the hole in the ozone layer and the “cause”…flourocarbons?:
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/cfc.htm (a very long read)

The responsible thing to do is NOT fish in infested waters, PERIOD!

If putting the resource ahead of your pleasure is too radical for you; spring for complete multiple sets of EVERYTHING that comes in contact with the water.

Read the research; felt is only a percentage of the total hiding places that invasives can use. Now take a GOOD look at the rest of your equipment and think really hard if 50% effective is really going to make as big a difference as the rubber sole advocates want us to believe. Should we ban wading socks and wet wading pants next? How about breathable fabric or neoprene? At least one study has implicated neoprene as equally as BAD although easier to effectively clean and dry.

If I was to scrub down all of my applicable gear in mid summer when I wet wade, I would have to clean EVERYTHING that could harbor the bad stuff. That list would include:

[ul]Wading shoes INCLUDING all the nooks and crannies beside the felt like the tongue, insoles and inside of gussets that drain the water, etc.[/ul]

[ul]Wading socks[/ul]

[ul]Neoprene booties[/ul]

[ul]Wet wading pants[/ul]

[ul]Belt[/ul]

[ul]Underwear, (I do wade deep sometimes ;))[/ul]

[ul]Fishing shirt, (again when I wade deep)[/ul]

[ul]Furled leaders[/ul]

[ul]Flies[/ul]

[ul]Wading staff[/ul]

[ul]Fly line and other tackle[/ul]
Did I forget anything?

Now mind you, many of the scrubbing routines recommend complete drying before reuse for 100% effectiveness. So tell me honestly; on those days or weekends when you fish two or more creeks does anyone out there really expect me to believe that you check, clean and dry ALL of your stuff between watersheds? Or do you just clean your felt-less wading shoes and pat yourself on the back for being so responsible? How about those who like to backpack and fish multiple streams; far from cars, 409 bottles or cleaning stations. Are you bringing along extra wading gear, your cleaning supplies or just crossing your fingers?

I wonder who offers the most vectors; five felt-less fellows who don’t take the time to clean as fastidiously as five felted fellows who do; because they feel they have to.

If you really do go for the gusto and clean 100% of your gear after each and every time you fish your problem is solved because it will take you so long to clean ALL of the contributing vectors effectively that you won’t have time to fish anyplace else.

What about just limiting your fishing and gear to infested waters?? If there is Didymo downstream do you move upstream in the same watershed with the same gear? If you do; don’t you think you are spreading the problem faster than it would spread naturally in an infested stream or isn’t that a problem to you; spoiled goods and all.

Another issue with felt replacements is cost. Aquastealth is far from the least expensive sole option out there. I understand Vibram has something new on the horizon but Vibram has always been expensive. So where does that leave the angler on a budget; the guy who wouldn’t or couldn’t dream of a $100+ pair of wading shoes? If he has a conscious will he have to opt for cheaper and less grippy alternatives at the risk of breaking his neck, or will he be bullied and humiliated by the “concerned” anglers into spending money he doesn’t have on a 50% solution; for the good of the fish.

Maybe since any felt ban would be mandated by government; we need a coupon program like is in place for digital TV conversion. A $40 coupon for each household for a new pair of $175 Simms! In the mean time; Simms, the advocates and TU should pony up to help those who want to do their part but find it hard to justify spending that kind of dough on something that doesn’t guarantee success. I mean; you do want as much involvement as possible, right?

I don’t doubt that felt is a contributor but so is a lot of other stuff and that’s where these bans fall short on results but long on fuzzy feelings. Felt is a convenient villain in this battle just like SUV’s and plastic supermarket bags are in others.

What annoys me the most is this ban banter is just another way for the worried folks to get their knickers in a knot over the felt wearers perceived lack of concern. Will the new rubber soled wading shoes come with green bottoms and include a giant embroidered patch of the Earth that you can sew on your fishing vest to let the rest of the anglers know that you are “concerned”; or will you just periodically lift your shoes in an “silly walk” to show the rest of us your choice of sole material.

In defense of the felt wearers I ask that until you examine the places they fish, their surefootedness or lack thereof or how or whether they clean their gear; save the scorn for somebody else; this sport is already full up to its eyeballs with upturned noses.

I will continue wearing felt until something better comes along. I’ve tried it all and so far felt wins where I fish. I know regardless of sole choice it’s impossible and impractical to clean all of my gear effectively between watersheds in the same day/weekend and I won’t attempt to fool myself into believing it is. I always clean my gear after a trip and I always have but I know that no amount of cleaning is 100% and “good enough” isn’t enough.

So for me and my big mouth; long ago I made the decision to not fish where the bad stuff lives; anything less is a bit hypocritical in my book.

Sorry for the rant…

…sort of.

:wink: