MANY, many years ago, there was a photo of yours truly published in a well-read fishing magazine, perched on a precarious rock high above a swell-swept ocean, wearing what a lot of Australians know as “Chinese safety boots”; and I don’t

think they were even double-pluggers. Just your basic rubber thongs. I copped some flak over that, which was fair enough, but at the time it didn’t seem to be dangerous in any way. I never felt like I was taking any sort of a risk. That was then. Now, older and I swear wiser, it’s very unlikely I would wear thongs many places at all, least of all on a broken surface half a step away from a cliff edge.

This is no fashion statement. There are simply better, safer, more comfortable things to wear. One of the guys at the shop, the other day, pointed out my fashion statements from a video shot at Lord Howe Island really not that long ago: moustache, Ray-Ban Aviators, and Adidas Romes. The Aviators weren’t even polarised. They’re back in fashion now, and I still have them, but I won’t be wearing them fishing. Same with the Romes; the three stripes are back in fashion too, but there’s no way I’d be wearing those soles on a boat deck now.

To focus on fishing footwear, things have come a long way in a short time. I’ve become a bit of a collector, although my Imelda Marcos tendencies are constrained by the recognition that I already have more than I need. Nonetheless, there’s good new stuff coming out all the time, and we are duty-bound to draw some to your attention.

Beginning with boats, lots of people go barefoot and that’s understandable, given our typically warm weather. There are some who never go barefoot, and they’re generally people who have experienced a broken toe in a boat, or a hook through the instep, or a gash from a mackerel jaw, or a snapper spine deep into the flesh. I’ve personally had none of them, but I’ve seen all of them. I tend to wear shoes most times in boats now.

There are some serious manufacturers of specialist boating footwear, and their products are often cutting edge, and often not readily available in Australia. So to stick with products that are readily available, it pretty much comes down to regular “deck shoes”, but even in those there are standouts.

A lot of what’s good and bad in deck shoes comes down, literally, to the sole. Siping of the rubber sole is a term thrown about commonly, but even amongst people using it, few realise it is a process less than a century old. Siping was a process patented in the 1920s by John Sipe. He worked in an abattoir on a wet concrete floor, and improved his lot by slicing into the rubber soles of his own shoes. Eventually the process found its way into car tyres too, albeit a little late to make John Sipe rich and famous. It makes shoes a lot more grippy, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that the sipes aren’t in the soles to carry water away, they’re there to allow the sole to be much more flexible. A siped sole affords better grip than either an open tread or a treadless sole. It helps most with soft soles, keeping more of the sole in contact with the surface, and gives more grip.

Sperry, a famous name in marine footwear, was kicked off by yachtsman Paul Sperry in 1935, and while John Sipe was wishing tyre manufacturers would buy his idea before the patent ran out, Paul Sperry claimed it for his own and applied it to shoes, where John Sipe had started out. Sperry gave the credit to his cocker spaniel, who could run on ice pretty well and had lots of sipes, for want of a better name, on the pads of his paws. Sperry didn’t call them sipes for obvious reasons, but he did take them further than Sipe ever did, and settled upon the now universal herringbone pattern of razor slits, a couple of millimetres apart, on the soles of his deck shoes.

Siping tyres is virtually unknown as an aftermarket thing in Australia, but it’s reasonably popular around North American iced roads. The US National Safety Council tested siped versus non-siped tyres back in 1978, and found siped tyres significantly better: breakaway traction, for instance, improved by 65 per cent in their tests. That’s pretty much what we’re talking about with deck shoes. Braking distance decreased by 22 per cent. They didn’t test tyre wear. Traction of the tyre when it was spinning was 28 per cent better, so if you relate that to shoes, even once you’re sliding you have more chance of staying upright. New tests run only last year showed even greater improvements in spinning traction with siped tyres, evidence that material and design improvements over 25 years continue to be benefited by siping.

Back to shoes, and one of the most readily available “leaders of the pack” in Australia is a Columbia product they call Earl Cove. The main difference between them and most “deck shoes” is that they’re really made to be worn on boat decks, not everywhere; the sole is a soft, sticky gum rubber material that grips well to wet surfaces, but isn’t hard enough to walk a thousand kilometres in. A bit like a racing tyre designed to last 300km; great tyres, and you wouldn’t put them on a road car. They also have mesh patches in the uppers to help them dry rapidly when saturated, which should be a must for all deck shoes made to be worn in real fishing situations. It surprises me when I see some big names in the deck shoe business produce shoes that, when full of water, stay full of water.

Sperry is still a big brand doing quality products, at the upper end of the price range. They’re more commonly seen in yachting stores, where Columbia are found in tackle and outdoor stores. Sipes so thin they’re invisible until the sole is flexed are called “razor sipes”. They can’t be moulded in, but have to be cut in after the sole is made. They have the advantage of minimising rubble retention – the sipes are so thin they don’t readily fill up with grit.

Completing the jump back to shore, there is a specialist boot that has been around for ten or 15 years now, but that many anglers would still not know about. Two companies distribute these in Australia, and you’ll see them in tackle stores as either Rock Hopper or Rock Spike boots. Much the same thing either way, and selling for around $70. These boots have a hard lug sole under a neoprene upper with a nylon zip entry, meaning they’re tough as nails and okay to get wet. The different thing about them is the drill-bit-hard collection of metal spikes in the soles, which grip wet rocks like nothing else. There’s a photo back up the top of a guy on the Oysters at Exmouth getting wetter than I would care to be, and at the time I felt some concern for his safety (okay, not enough to stop me taking the photo). He was wearing Rock Spikes, and they may well have saved him from looking like he had been trampled on by those same spikes. You wouldn’t want to take a tumble across that reef.

Spiked boots obviously aren’t suitable for wearing anywhere other than on beach, rock and reef, so they’re a specialised product. If you spend some fishing time walking around on wet rocks and on reefs, they’re probably something you should invest in.

So what would I wear on that cliff edge these days? Sandals most times, and that’s a whole other subject. These days, there are scores of great sandals available, and some manufacturers take them to the nth degree with high-tech soles, straps, connections and materials. They’re all better than thongs, and when it’s too hot for shoes and too rough for bare feet, they’re a good call. Don’t ask me which ones, there’s waaay too many.

© Hal Harvey