Tag: tips and tricks

Get your waders ready for spring with these cleaning and prep tips

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Here are a few easy tips for prepping your waders for a busy spring and summer fishing season.

The days are getting longer, and seasons are kicking off. Time to get your gear prepped and ready. 

Apply a fresh DWR treatment to your waders and jackets. 

The DWR, or Durable Water Repellent coating, is what makes water bead up and run off your waders and jackets. This coating is what helps keep your technical garments breathable and keep you comfortable. When the coating wears down the outer face of your garment gets saturated with water and you’ll start to get the dreaded ‘wetting out’. This term simply refers to reduced breathability, so the wearer gets clammy and damp from sweat and condensation build-up.  Heading this off is as easy as picking up a bottle of ReviveX DWR spray and treating your waders and jackets. 

Tip: If your waders are really dirty, clean them first before applying the DWR treatment with some ReviveX Pro Cleaner. 

Check your belt 

Check that your belt is still with your waders.

We know, it sounds basic, but it’s better to check now than realize it’s not there when you go to put them on at the fishing spot. If your belt is missing get yourself a new one – it’s a safety item.

Clean and lubricate your zippers

We recommend cleaning and lubricating the zippers on waders and jackets on a regular basis.  Zipper Cleaner and Lubricant and Zipper Lubricant Stick from Gearaid do the job nicely and will help keep your zippers operating smoothly and performing like they should.  If your zipper is dirty, or isn’t running as smoothly as it once did then pick up one or both of the products mentioned here and fix it up. 

Clean out pockets

Are your pockets full of old gear, line trimmings, protein bar wrappers, etc? Go ahead and clean it out now and give yourself a fresh start to the season. 

Replace worn out gear

Is it time for a new jacket, new boots, new waders? As you go through checking your gear be real and fill in any gaps in your gear closet with replacements.

Easy fly change tip with Jordan

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This is a neat tip from Jordan Young-Treadway @treadwatersfly on how to tame your Skagit head and sink tip while swapping a fly without reeling in any line at all. If you’re working through a run and want to make sure that you start again at the same distance, this trick lets you easily swap flies without reeling in your line. Without tying off to your rod like Jordan shows here your fly line will float away and tug on your tippet, making swapping flies more difficult. Happy fishing!

How to safely clean your breathable waders

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Why wash your waders?

First off, you may be wondering why you would want to wash your waders. There are several reasons why you should wash your waders. Keeping them clean and free of dirt, oils, fish slime, etc will prolong the life of the materials and help your waders last longer. Washing them will also help get some of the funk out, so they won’t be quite so pungent stinking up the car on the drive to the river.

We get questions from time to time on the best way to wash waders, so here are some tips.

Wash your waders by hand

We recommend hand washing your waders with some Revivex Pro Cleaner (or mild non scented soap) in cold or lukewarm water using a soft rag. A mild scrub down should work to clean as much of the dirt that will come off by hand and keep the waterproof fabric repelling water like it should. Do not use harsh detergents, cleaners or scented laundry detergents. Any cleaner that is formulated for outdoor fabrics, including for Gore-Tex, is best and safe to use as long as it can be applied through a hand wash. Nikwax, Gearaid, and others make cleaners that are specifically designed to be safe for outdoor fabrics such as those used on our waders. Keep it simple and use Gearaid Revivex Pro Cleaner.

Hang dry until completely dry.

If desired use some DWR spray reviver on them. Nikwax and GearAid (maker of Aquaseal) make spray on DWR reviving applications for use after cleaning. The GearAid ReviveX is a good product that does a great job of reinvigorating DWR coatings. You will want to clean up the waders as much as possible (hand wash) before using it and then just spray it on when the waders are wet or dry. Let it cure for 24 hours before use.

We don’t recommend machine washing waders and when it comes to using the dryer we just say no. Our reasons are that we don’t like the possible abrasion and catching or bunching that could possibly occur during the wash cycle (this sort of depends on the machine type), and also don’t like to soak the inside seams with water. Never put waders in the dryer as the heat can damage the seam tape.

Once your waders are all washed up just hang them to dry and then store in a cool dry place.

ReviveX Pro Cleaner - Gearaid wader cleaning soap