Catch and Release Fishing with the Bestard Canyon Guide

These Boots are made for Wading

Text and photos by Paul Arden

The choices when fly fishing, for most of my life, have either been to wear a pair of ill-fitting “wading”boots, that fail to take into account the anatomy of the human foot, or else to wear a pair of adapted hiking boots, that offer poor grip when crossing slippery rocks, are heavy and fall apart after only six months!

In my case I used to go with the second option. My reasoning for this was because when fishing New Zealand, some of my hardest fishing days would involve traversing 20 or more miles of rocky gorges, and ill-fitting boots would result in painful feet, making it impossible to fish back to back days. And I so was there to fish straight through, with no rest days!

Consequently I would buy an expensive pair of hiking boots and immediately cut three-quarters of the sole away and replace it with felt, that I would screw and glue into position. The result was fairly decent, but over time the leather would harden (the boots could be wet for months at a time and so greasing boots was almost impossible), eyelets would pop out and after six months the boots would fall to pieces. And man, when those boots were wet, they were certainly heavy! Sometimes I felt that my lower legs were going to fall off at the knees.

And then I had to stop doing this because Didymo appeared in NZ and it was being spread around between rivers with felt soles. Indeed felt is now completely banned in NZ and discouraged in many other places as well. Not only can felt carry Didymo but also invasive snails and who knows what else?

Bestard Canyon Guide

However Bestard has turned all of this on its head for me, with their Bestard Canyon Guide boots, that are lightweight, tough, quick drying, offer excellent grip, with their “sticky” Idrogrip soles, and are comfortable enough to put in hard back-to-back fishing days. I’ve been fishing with my pair of Bestard Canyon Guide for over two years now! I’ve never had a pair of fishing boots that last me this long in my life. True, I’m not doing the same back-to-back hard mileage that I once was in NZ, but here in the Malaysian jungle I still go hard in the same way that I did then and I’m certainly giving them a good thrashing!

The most important consideration of any fishing boot is grip. The last thing you want to be is uncertain on your feet when crossing swift rivers. There are rivers where the only option to get across is to run with the current. If your feet are slipping and sliding around underneath you then you can end up swimming. And it’s just downright dangerous to lose your balance when fishing a gorge.

The Bestard Canyon Guides give excellent grip. I’ve additionally fitted mine with studs. I use Supatracks 3000B. I’ve had these screwed into the soles since shortly after getting hold of the boots and I can definitely recommend them for this application. Just don’t wear them in tents or on wooden floors! There are 10 studs in each boot and they are still there now, two years on. (I’ve just checked because I’m wearing them now, in fact I wear these boots every day!). I’m not affiliated to either company by the way.

I don’t know if we can ever truly better felt for slippery rocks, but this combination is as close as I’ve come to matching it. And has one huge advantage over felt; you can walk on wet grass without ending up upside down.

The other features that I really appreciate in these boots are the lack of weight. It makes such a difference being nimble on your feet. I can actually jump when boulder hopping! And there are times in fishing when you just want to move fast between pools. These are certainly fast boots.

Comfortable, lightweight, extremely hard-wearing and with outstanding grip. Built in gaiters, a clever way of hiding shoelaces. Riveted eyelets that are still in place two years later? There is simply no other boot like it. And I’ve been through many!

I think one other attribute that I find very interesting is how quick they are to put on and take off. Your foot goes straight in, pull the laces, loop around two pairs of hooks, knot and hide the laces. With the laces hidden away they don’t accidentally untie halfway across a river. And when you want to take your boots off it takes a matter of seconds. That is amazing. And very important too because normally putting on boots in a mission in itself. My previous pair of boots required so much effort to put on, that I would often wear sandals instead, when really I wanted boots on my feet.

26 seconds! I’ve just timed it. That’s how long it took me just now to put both boots on, tie up the laces and tuck them away. And I’m not a ninja. That makes a big difference. In other words I wear them as my go-to footwear here in the tropics instead of sandals. Ok add a couple of seconds to check for scorpions. That might save you time in the long run.

So I have no qualms about saying it; these are hands down the best boots I’ve ever owned

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Paul Arden
Paul Arden is a catch and release fly fisherman involved in several fish conservation projects in Malaysia. He has been fly fishing for over 40 years and fishes pretty much all the time. Fly casting coach, fly rod designer and manager/owner of Sexyloops.com. He also has very big feet.