Wading safety

0:00This is Daniel Galhardo and you're listening to the Tenkara Cast, a podcast about the simple Japanese method of fly-fishing, Tenkara. In the Tenkara Cast we'll be sharing information on techniques, history, philosophy, and Tenkara stories from anglers all over the world. This podcast is brought to you by Tenkara USA, introducing Tenkara outside of Japan since 2009. It's only possible we create content such as this podcast and videos because of your support. So we thank you so very much for purchasing Tenkara USA Rods, Lines and Flies. I hope you enjoy learning more about the simple method of fly fishing. In this podcast, I kind of try to cover a variety of topics. I do have some ideas jotted down for different episodes, but in general, a lot of times I just kind of override those ideas with something that comes up or inspires me or, you know, that I feel like that should be discussed and maybe was not part of the plan. You know, a lot of times it can be very spontaneous. Maybe that makes the quality of the episodes less than what it could be. Sometimes it's a little bit more planned out. But just a couple of days ago, I was driving with a friend and we were driving right by River, and the topic of wading safety came up. And I realized that that's something that we hardly ever talk about. And I do have an experience, a story to share that, you know, it's something that came up in our conversation that makes me really want to share some tips and thoughts on wading safety. And my story happened, it's been probably about eight, nine years ago, a little bit more actually. And until then, I had been almost exclusively a wet wading guy, you know, and somebody who tried to stay off the water. But, you know, if I did see a need to get in the water, I would just maybe take my shoes off and go in and that kind of thing.

2:13I didn't really do a lot of winter fishing at the time. But, you know, I kind of wanted to kind of explore different waters and I wanted to get myself some waders. So I saved up some money. I was a college student then and saved up some money and bought my first pair of waders and wading boots. You know, I found something that I could afford and, you know, I was really excited, you know, to be able to get in the water and try, you know, just because when you're wading and you wear waders, you're a little bit more comfortable, it's a little warmer, and it opens up waters that maybe you cannot reach otherwise. So my wife and I, I think we were dating at that time actually, we went up to the Russian River in California, Northern California, and I wanted to do a little bit of fishing. So I brought my waders along, put it on, put on the boots, and immediately headed over to the river as Margaret just sat back, and I think she was reading some book or something.

3:23And on the Russian River, it's a relatively large river, calmer kind of water, and it has a lot of sandbanks. So I got in the water with absolutely no wading experience at all. And a few minutes later, you know, I'm doing a few casts, and I'm moving around a little bit, moving either upstream or into the water a little deeper. And a few minutes later, my feet gave out underneath me on the sand bank. The sand just kind of, actually, it was not my feet that gave up. The ground gave up underneath my feet. The sand just kind of slipped, and it was in a relatively deep part of the river with a little bit of a drop-off. As it did that, I went in the water. And I was not prepared. I was not aware of, you know, any kind of real dangers of waiting until then. As soon as I went in the water, the river might have been about five and a half, six feet deep.

4:24I mean, it was probably going to be enough to, you know, have me under. But I went in the water, and water started filling my waders pretty rapidly. You know, essentially, when you have waders, especially chest waders, your waders are like a bucket. They can start filling up with water. And once it starts filling up with water, it kind of goes into your feet, and it becomes really, really heavy. And it can really be dangerous. Luckily, I had a lot of experience. I grew up surfing, and the one thing that I think I've learned since I was a kid was not to panic. Because I was underwater, or not underwater at this point, but I was in the water. My waders started feeling very, very heavy very, very quickly. But I did not panic. I saw that the river is going to be, luckily it was not a raging kind of river. It was a little bit of a slow river. but I just kind of slowly kind of try to swim to the shore a little bit downstream. I kind of went with the flow a little bit. You know it's important not to try to fight the current because that's going to be really heavy or very difficult and it's going to take a lot of energy.

5:41But I just went along with the current and at the same time started paddling to the shore and I got onto another sandbank and took the waders off, kind of took the water off. There might have been about easily 20 pounds of water in the waders at that point. But that taught me a very valuable lesson that waders can fill up and they can be dangerous if you're not aware of precautions. The story, you know, luckily didn't have a sad ending. I am still around here to share the story. But it is something that I've noticed is not really discussed a whole lot. And I think with us in Tenkara getting a lot more people to fly fish, I think it's important that I share the story and a few things that we have to be mindful of. On a recent episode, I talked about winter fishing, and I suggested that in the winter, waders are almost a must-have.

6:48because you know you keep you dry and you keep you warm I also one of the early episodes about I talked about some of the gear that I use and I mentioned waders and wading boots so I thought I would share I should share some of the tips that I have on wading safety or just some some of them might be very common sense but if we're not aware of them they're not common sense so that's kind of what I wanted to share. There's not a lot of videos or anything like that, but there are some old videos that actually my friend Ralph Cutter was part of, developed by Sims, where they talk about weighting safety. It's a series of videos, and I'll try to find the link. I know I posted them on our blog quite a while ago, but I'm going to try to find the link and post the videos again on this episode's reference page at Tinkadiose.com forward slash podcast. But the reason the conversation came up the other day is because my friend and I, we're both climbers. We rock climb a lot. And we were talking about how every piece of climbing equipment that we ever buy has some very dire warnings, you know, and it has a lot of instructions and warnings about how to stay safe. And I don't remember seeing, I'm sure they might be there, I might be totally wrong, maybe you just didn't pay attention, but I didn't really see, don't remember seeing that on waiting equipment, and just the, you know, some of the things that I think we have to be aware of. In any case, long story short, just a few things to be aware of. First of all, as I, you know, as my story kind of illustrates, it's really good to be aware that waders do fill up and if you're if you're going to be fishing in deep water you have to be very very mindful of that the water actually doesn't have to be very deep maybe four feet you know deep or so all of a sudden you can kind of have all this water kind of bringing you down and that can be dangerous so if you're aware that you know waders will fill up and it will get heavy, that's a very important thing to know. And the first step that goes with that is the importance of the wading belt that comes with your waders. I have seen people thinking that the wading belt is more of a static thing or maybe it's something to hang your, you know, gear pouch from and that kind of thing. And that's not true. So the wading belt is one of the most important safety features of your waders. And what it does as a safety feature is it keeps the water from filling up your waders very fast. So the one thing you want to do is have the wading belt kind of tight around your waist. Because yeah, you'll get some water on the chest part, but it doesn't go into your feet very quickly. In my story, my experience when I, you know, went under my waders filled up fast, I had no idea about that. And my waders started filling fast. If I had just kept my wading belt tight, I would have, you know, had some more time to kind of stand up and not get sucked by the water so much. If you also know that the wading, you know, the waders can fill up.

10:17If you are going to be fishing, you know, in deep waters, just be very careful about your footing uh you know if you just don't want to fall period but um you know if if you're going to be in deep waters just avoid going really really deep unless you're very confident about it um but try to stay within up to your waist you know don't go any more than that because all of a sudden you start losing balance start losing you know footing um i'm guilty of going deep sometimes you know but you should be aware of the danger that that might present so I tend to stay up to my you know my waist typically I like to stay up to my knee or thigh when I'm waiting if I want to be a little bit more cautious one tip that is shared by Ralph Cutter in those videos that I mentioned that I'm going to be posting is if you're going to be fishing in waters that are kind of rapid, you know, very challenging wading situations and maybe deeper water, one kind of neat thing that you can do is actually use two wading belts, one on the waist and one around the chest. And that gives you two layers of protection from keeping the water from filling up your waders and that kind of thing. Very handy tip if you do have extra wading belts or even like another belt or some strap that you can put around the waist and the chest. That's going to be very helpful in keeping you safe in more dangerous waters. The other thing too, kind of like I mentioned in my story, don't panic. You know, if your waders do fill up and you are in a situation of kind of being carried with a current, don't panic because essentially once the waders start filling up, then it just becomes, yeah, it's going to feel heavy. It's not going to be nearly as light as swimming away freely. But it will kind of balance out a little bit, you know, so essentially you're in the water when the waders are filled up anyways. So don't panic. Try to keep your feet downstream from you. So somewhat try to rotate and then just kind of try to work towards the shore.

12:31Hopefully you never have to find yourself in a panicky kind of situation, but it's a really important to keep a cool head and think, you know, what should I do here? I should just get to the shore and try to stand up and get away from the situation. Easier said than done, but if you can keep your head cool, keep your feet facing downstream so that if there are any obstacles, you have your feet to kind of keep you from getting stuck, that's going to be very helpful as well. now the other thing that i've learned with waiters that i was not aware of when i bought my first waiters as a matter of fact i think it took me a couple years to learn the trick when you put your waiters on you know and waiters are kind of airtight essentially they are they're waterproof the air that gets in them is going to have a hard time escaping when you put your waders on and then you put your belt on. One thing that some of you might have noticed is that you're, especially when the belt is tight around your waist, is that the legs are going to be kind of like inflated. It's going to be a buoy. That can be a very dangerous thing in itself and might have contributed to me falling in the water the very first time that I went out. So essentially all this air is filled filling up the you know around the waders in the empty space you put the wading belt on and it's going to be all these inflated legs and i've experienced you know that for for a while probably like where you have this inflated leg and you step in the water and your leg just wants to pop up kind of like a you know a little float and it's actually really easy to get rid of that but it's something that you know you do have to be aware of and the way to get rid of the air the easiest way is when you put your waders on crouch down like just kind of really kind of get down low just crouch down and then you know you're squeezing the air out of your legs by doing that if you can just kind of push the air out of the the leg area and then when you're still crouching down, put your weighting belt around your waist. And what you're going to notice is like when you stand up, it looks like the wader, you know, is kind of like molded to your leg.

14:53It's kind of got formed. There's a little bit of a vacuum. And that's going to keep your leg from floating up and, you know, coming out from underneath you when you do step in the water. That's actually a very important tip. I think when you get your first waders on and you're not, you know very aware of it just be aware that that flotation you know that you're going to feel on your legs you can get rid of it pretty quickly and very easily and avoid some trouble next I'm going to talk a little bit about weighting boots so with weighting safety I think the boots play a very very important role in keeping us safe primarily because of traction So when you're in the water, usually what gets us in trouble a lot of times is slipping, falling in the water like I did. In my case, it was not because of traction. It was because the sand gave in under my feet. But I have fallen in the water before because of slipping on wet, slick rocks.

15:59There's all kinds of arguments and debates going on about what kind of boots to wear and what kind of soles to have on your boots. I like to recommend if you're very new to fly fishing and maybe you don't have great balance or you know you don't feel super confident walking in the water felt soles are probably the best way to go felt does have really good traction in wet waters wet rocks and it can be a good way to get started. there's all kinds of really good rubber sole boots out there in the market right now that are very very sticky but i do find that once in a while they will encounter some rocks that they have a hard time you know really gripping very well it'll happen with felt sometimes too but in general felt kind of covers a you can be a little bit more confident i think with felt on rocks. A lot of people like to use studded soles because they do grip on wet rocks, especially if they're like algae covered rocks. I personally don't like studs on my soles because I find that I'm slipping on the dry rocks if I'm walking on the shore. I'm slipping on some of the rocks, like if they're more like slick kind of rocks without a lot of texture to them, I will find myself slipping on them a little bit more so I tend to avoid personally studded soles but a lot of people love them and if you do fish rivers that have a lot of slime and algae kind of covering the rocks and the rocks are not super polished that might be a really good way to go about that I personally use rubber soles almost all the time almost exclusively I do have you know good kind of balance and i do find myself um you know i have enough experience and i find myself with um confidently being able to take steps but the one thing with rubber as you walk on a river and this is applicable to pretty much any kind of soul make sure that your next step is really firm before you bring your next leg over if that makes sense um but you just want to make sure you have sure footing before getting your second foot off the rock behind it. You know, you just want to take little steps and make sure that you have good balance in your firm and it can continue moving. Just try not to move too fast when you're in the water and if you, especially if you have any risk of, you know, in deep water and that kind of thing. So yeah, on the boots, all kinds of ways to go about it felt will be generally stickier some people like studded soles but the the general rule is just thread lightly you know walk kind of slowly plant your feet firmly before you really move on to the next spot and lastly but not least is the use of staff of waiting stuff like poles to kind of give you some balance to kind of let you know what's ahead and that kind of thing one of the beautiful things i've a lot of people have pointed out about tenkara is that you're only using one hand for fly fishing and with your free hand what do you do with a free hand yes you can hold some beer in your hand if you if you want to do that but you can also use it for holding your waiting staff.

19:37And that's something that a lot of people have pointed out they love about Tancada is that as they're fishing with their hand, they're just casting all the time, and their free hand is just holding a waiting staff that they can either prop themselves up a little bit more, they can touch the ground ahead of them, or it just kind of gives them a little bit of extra balance. It's an incredible tool. if you're new to fishing if you find yourself you know that you don't have a great balance or not super good amount of confidence in the water a waiting staff is essentially a third leg you know you're kind of and you can use it for all kinds of things you can use it to balance with it a little bit you know as if you were a third leg you can feel the ground in front of you before you step You know, if the water is murky and you can't see what's ahead, it's a great tool for that. You know, just kind of feeling what's ahead. As you're crossing streams, you know, it really is a pretty nice thing to have as you kind of take steps and it serves, again, as this third leg for you to prop yourself up with.

20:50Personally, I don't have a huge amount of experience with waiting steps. I personally don't use them. I apologize. I don't have too much more to say about them. But there's all kinds of cool staffs, and you can use all kinds of things. I mean, it can be as simple as a branch that you pick up, you know, like a solid piece of wood that you pick up when you're fishing. It can be a broomstick. Or it can get this really neat, like, telescoping, where actually they're more like foldable waiting staffs, you know, that kind of come together like a tent pole would. And those are very small. You can have them like inside of a small little pouch. When you get to the river, you just kind of extend them and use them that way. So you can use pretty much anything. It's just important that it be very solid because there is going to be a lot of pressure that you're going to be putting on it. So you don't want something that's really kind of lightweight or too skinny. I would avoid, you know, like very lightweight tracking pole kind of stuff.

21:53you know like the carbon fiber lightweight stuff you can use them it's they'll be useful for all kinds of things but if you do come into situations of putting a whole lot of weight on them I've heard it might not be the most solid kind of tool so I hope this episode helps keep you safe next time you get in the water if you're new to using waders and you know and getting in water with waders. I hope this kind of helps you know what to look for when you first put on your waders and get in the water and hopefully it'll help you avoid my experience going in the water and being dragged down a little bit for a little while. I hope you liked this episode and if I have any more safety tips that come up I will make sure to bring them up but y'all be safe out there in the water, especially now in the winter. You know, it's just, it can be cold in the water.

22:53And I guess I should bring up the idea of staying warm as well, my oversight. But since it is winter, I like to avoid using any kind of materials that absorb water and keep water. So one of the risks, you know, if you do go in the water, especially if you're by yourself or far away from your car, is that, yeah, you're going to get soaking wet and you're going to get cold. And if you're in the water, there's no way to avoid getting cold. You're just going to get cold. But try to use some synthetic kind of layer material like fleece or kind of like synthetic puffy kind of jackets. Really avoid cotton t-shirts or cotton fleece because they will soak a tremendous amount of water and they will just keep the water in there and you're going to get really cold very fast. definitely avoid down insulation because that's gonna once the down gets wet you're just gonna be not insulating you so fleece wool jackets and synthetic kind of puffies even when you do get them wet I have had the experience of getting them soaking wet and but there's still a little bit of insulation and you can stay a little warm so you know and especially again if you're going to be going far away from your car be very very safe because hyperthermia in the winter can be a real issue so all right guys and gals be safe out there when you go fishing uh and with your waders and even without your waders till next time on the Tenkara Cast thank you very much for listening to the Tenkara Cast i'd like to extend a special thank you to nick ogawa also known as Takenobu. Check out his music at takenobumusic.com. We'll be posting links to any references we made in this podcast, such as Takenobu's music, on our website, www.tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast. And until next time on the Tenkara Cast.