Waders make you heavy and clumsy, and if you fall overboard in deep water they will prevent you from swimming, and might prevent you from being able to get back in your kayak – A perfect lose-lose situation, especially if the water is cold, because then you’ll be looking at hypothermia, which leads to paralysis and loss of consciousness.

Even in shallow water, where you can stand on the bottom, waders might limit your movements to a point where you become exhausted from walking in deep mud, or in water that gets above your waistline. Again, this is especially true in cold water and weather, and it’s more dangerous if you’re wearing heavy rubber boots.

To those who’d say they’ve fallen from their fishing kayaks waders on, and nothing happened, we would say “good for you!”, but such cases are by no means an excuse for being reckless – It doesn’t pay in the long run, and you don’t want to be on the news – at least not as the subject of a ‘kayak fishing accident’ story.

If you must wear something on your legs because you have to wade where you fish, you may want to consider wet-suit pants.

It’s quite useful for occasional wading, or for any other activity.
This is s picture that Jeff sent us. It shows him standing outside his W fishing kayak and measuring his next meal…