Fighting The Wader Funk

13 comments / Posted on / by

Photo by Tim Romano

Photo by Tim Romano

Do your friends twitch their noses like rabbits when you show up to fish?

Do they have to rub camphor under their noses like Quincy just to run shuttle with you? Does your dog roll in cow shit before before he jumps in the truck to go fishing with you?

You might have wader funk.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Millions of anglers…well, lots of them anyway, suffer from wader funk. It’s not you making those G-4s reek. It’s bacteria growing in them and it doesn’t just smell. It’s silently killing your waders.

The primary cause of wader funk is storing your waders wet. It happens to me. I travel with waders, sometimes for months at a time, waded up in a plastic bag in my luggage. It’s sometimes tough to get them dry. Before you know it those tiny black spots start to form on the inside and it smells like a badger crawled in there to die.

117574Fortunately, there’s an answer. I discovered a great product called Mirazyme. Mirazyme is an all natural, enzyme-based cleaner/odor eliminator used by divers to preserve their wetsuits. It’s easy to use, inexpensive and works amazingly well. Much better than the old vinegar and Clorox trick.

Just fill the tub with warm water, add a few tablespoons of Mirazyme and soak your waders for ten minutes. Then hang to dry. They’ll smell like the day they came out of the box. Best of all, that bacteria that was eating at your Gortex will be dead. You’ll smell fresh and your waders will last a lot longer. Your dog might even be proud to be seen with you again.
Come fish with us in the Bahamas!

Louis Cahill
Gink & Gasoline
www.ginkandgasoline.com
hookups@ginkandgasoline.com
 
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13 thoughts on “Fighting The Wader Funk

  1. To reduce foot moisture from sweat use deodorant on your feet before putting on socks. Trick learned years ago working as a ski patroller during sub-zero days. Just make sure it has aluminum chlorhydrate (hopefully correct spelling) as main ingredient. Roll-on or spray best choices.

    • That stuff is called Certain Dri. It’s over the counter but you have to ask the Pharmacist for it usually. Works amazingly well …er…so I’ve been told…by a friend…or something.

  2. After getting some type of fungal outbreak on my lower half due to waders that were stored damp, I have adopted a policy of always turning my waders inside out and leaving them hanging that way for a day.

    One of my only one-night-stands ever was during that fungus episode and I’ll never forget trying to convince the chick that I didn’t have some rotten STD.

  3. I’ve got a formula to completely over power wader funk. 1. Eat stuffed cabbage
    2. Eat chili with beans
    3. Wait a couple hours
    4. Put on the waders and tighten your belt.
    5. Do 10 squats.
    The resulting aerosol will kill anything – 🙂

  4. Mirazyme works. If you expose the inside of your wades to sunlight once in a while, by turning them inside out- gently- they will stay bug free. From November through March, out here in the Olympic Peninsula rainforest, this can be tough to do. But light and air are the best basic preventive steps for maintaining odor free waders. The molds and bacteria involved are generally anaerobic, requiring darkness, a lack of oxygen, and moisture.

  5. Pingback: Fishing waders care and maintenance | Fishing Waders HeadquartersFishing Waders Headquarters

  6. Pingback: Fishing waders care and maintenance » Fly Fishing Appalachia

  7. Pingback: You stink -- It's the wader funk | A letter to a lonely friend | Troutbitten

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