If you’re not new to the blog, you’d remember about a month ago I wrote about my poor experience with SIMMs customer support and loyalty, or rather lack of it. Long story short, I’m switching over all my gear to Orvis and we’ll see how that works out for this year.
SIMMs must of heard and used their witchcraft powers that allowed them to tear my brand new Orvis Pro Waders i’ve been using. I’ve had 12 outings in them over the period of about 45 days. I went out for an hour one afternoon during the rain the other day and thought i felt my left foot getting damp. I thought it wasn’t possible and it must of just been the squishy feeling of the water between the stockingfoot bootie and the boot.
When it was dress down time I come to realize my sock was damp, and my stockingfoot bootie had a tear!
I was wondering how could this happen!? My booties never touch the ground (I have a wader mat and I also balance on one foot while inserting said leg into the wading boot). After careful inspection, my SIMMs G3 Boots had a hole inside the boot on the insole. One of the studs came through! I must of had a bunch of perfectly placed jumps on rocks with all my weight on the screw heads over the years for that to happen.
Still, I was furious. $550 waders, 12 uses, already a year on the bootie. Granted it wasn’t an Orvis quality defect, just SIMMs witchcraft. I shot over to the local TCO\Orvis fly shop in Haverford to get their opinion\take on the matter. They got Orvis on the phone right away to see what could be done.
Orvis said it was extremely unfortunately but they could get me a new pair of waders for the $40 warranty repair fee. Yes, not even repairing or replacing the booties, but a new pair of waders. Not that it really made a difference. I could care less which repair\replacement method was used. Just as long as the problem was solved and they didnt need patches or globs of aqua seal on them. The only problem was they did not have my size wader in stock. As they had a huge shipment held up across seas on the way. They estimated atleast a couple of weeks until I could be taken care of.
I figured Aquaseal was something I already had so itd be a first attempt freebie. I would patch it for now, and if it solved the issue through this season Id continue using them and then send them out later in the summer for replacement.
I decided since I was there I might as well get a new pair of boots. Which model to choose, hmm. Orvis Pro boots it was! Oh no, oh no! There was one problem. They didnt have them in my size 10 I needed. They had however a pair of Simms G3s. No thanks I said, I would just drive over to the Plymouth Meeting Orvis store and check their stock.
As I arrived at the Orvis Plymouth Meeting location I told the rep there the same story\issue I was experiencing and what my plan of action was. He agreed it made sense but also then said he wanted to replace my waders for me right away because of the completely crappy situation that happened. He would eat the cost and deal with the Orvis warranty department. Unfortunately the stock room did not have the Large Long I required but he ordered one and told me when it comes in that I could return and perform the swap.
This is what customer loyalty is about. I couldnt be more happier in my choice to switch to Orvis products and am excited to continue doing so.(I need a new wading jacket soon). But wait! Theres more. I still needed my boots. So I picked up the Orivs Pros, thanks the man again and headed on my way out.
Also, I decided id pick up a new pack of Orvis PosiGrip studs as well. After all, gotta be fashionable from head to toe when youre out there catching fish.
Fun fact on studs. You don’t necessarily need to pay $40 for 24 screws for your wading boots. There’s alternatives. Granted there’s arguments with carbine tips vs aluminum vs whatever other metal you wanna mention. All are going to be better then none on those slippery rocks. You can be cheap and find equivalent screws at your local hardware store, or if you want to be fancy and be set for life you can just use Kold Kutters. They are about $25 for 250 screws. They are the ones that are used on tires for cars\bikes racing on ice. I recommend 1/2″ #8 as they are the equivilent of most fishing markets studs, including the Orvis PosiGrips. Granted you should make sure you’re using the correct length for your specific boot\sole depth.
