Ultralight waders have been around for at least a couple of decades, likely more. The designers of these types of waders are faced with a difficult challenge: build a wader that is lightweight, packable, and comfortable but also one that stands up to the elements and the abuse that anglers inevitably deliver. Over the years, ultralight waders have always come with compromises. But as design and technology improves, each iteration seems to offer less and less to grin and bear — performing nearly as well as “normal” waders. With its latest offering, the Simms Flyweight Packable Wader, the lightest the venerated wader maker has ever built, Simms aims to offer anglers the most complete, ultralight package on the market.
Long product development cycles aren’t particularly rare — two and three years and the like — but for the Flyweight Packable Wader, Simms says it has been at the drawing board for a whopping 10 years spent honing and refining the wader’s design. The result is one that, the Bozeman-based brand says, “began as a niche solution for remote pursuits [and] has evolved into a go-anywhere, do-anything wader that thrives across seasons, fisheries, and travel scenarios.”
Weighing in at only 2.45 pounds (in size medium), the Flyweight Packable Wader is built with a 2.5-layer (we’re not sure how one gets a half of a layer, but we’ll take their word for it) Toray upper. Down low, in the legs and knees where it really matters, Simms used the same 4-layer Toray Quadralam it uses in its extremely popular Freestone Wader line, built to stand up to abuse delivered by the trail, riverside rocks and boulders, and so on.
To help aid the wader’s packability and light weight, Simms also used a special low-volume neoprene to construct the Flyweight’s booties. According to Simms, these new booties will pair well with both standard wading boots and wet wading footwear.
As noted, the wader aims to be short on compromises, offering many of the same conveniences and features you’d expect in a standard model wader — an adjustable suspender system for quick conversion to waist-high, integrated gravel guards, and a nicely sized chest pocket for storing fly boxes and other essentials which also doubles as a stuff sack that the entire wader packs into.
The Flyweight Packable wader packed into its integrated stuff sack (photo: Darcy Bacha).
Packed down into its stuff sack, the Flyweight Packable Wader will easily stow in a day pack, making it easy to pack along on long hike-ins to backcountry streams, leaving the wandering up for once you reach your destination — a boon for anglers that often log a bevy of trail miles in the search for remote and unpressured water.
The new Simms Flyweight Packable wader is available immediately from Simms Fishing and Simms authorized dealers at a retail price of $379.95.
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