riverman wrote:
Nice to hear that someone else had the same impression. My first
waders also
had built-in guards, and I found them a real pain to get on and off.
My
second pair had the detachable ones, with velcro at the back, but I
lost one
of them while wading in moving water.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm wondering if they would work better
if they just had a drawstring instead of elastic at the cuff.

I replaced them with my cross-country ski gators! (I use past tense
because
some ****wad stole all my gear in South Africa several years ago.)
But the
solution was so excellent that I'm going to buy another pair of
gators and
do it again.

They were an REI brand, lightweight nylon, very tight fitting around
the
shoe (with a hook for the shoelaces), and with a high collar that fit

mid-calf. They had a zipper in the back, an elastic at the ankle, and
a
slide-lock around the top. In addition to keeping *all* the gravel
out of
the shoe, they also served to protect the lower part of the waders
against
abrasion on rocks, or from snagging on brush while hiking. Also, the
water
moved through them a little bit while wading, so any fine silt was
constantly washed out. And best of all (for this fat boy) is that
they were
effortless to put on....I left them connected to my wading boots, and
I just
slipped my foot into the boot, tied it, and zipped up the gator. In
fact, I
bet that if some of you guys tried this, you would never go back to
velcro/elastic gravel guards again, and pretty soon the major
manufacturers
would start making these. I mean, really, they worked that well.

I checked the REI site and there are many different types, some are
over $80. Could you tell me exactly which pair you had?