Beef up your old wading boots with aluminum bars!

Patagonia rediscovered the traction power of aluminum. Their Rock grip wading boots has aluminum bars on the soles to provide the traction when fishing over slippery rock surfaces.

These boots are probably not for every situation. For instance on a drift boat, the guide will probably not allow you wearing one of these to prevent his boat from ripped up by the bars. Forking out $200 for wading boots that's for every once in a while?...

What if you have a pair of worn out wading boots, preferably with some kind of rubber sole like Vibram? By adding these aluminum bars you can turn them into wading boots to use with ultra slippery conditions. This way you give your old wading boots a second life!

Here's a great 'do-it-yourself' guide from Yellowstone Angler how to add Patagonia's replacement bars to your old wading boots. $40 for the replacement bars from Patagonia and some spare time and you get the real deal. Thanks George for the instructions!

Also check out the 2013 wader shootout at George's website.