Waders

Does anyone have a good way to clean the inside of waders? Mine are starting to attract seagulls, if you know whay I mean. I was thinking about soaking them in a tub of soapy water, rinsing and hanging them upside down in the sun to dry. Thanks in advance.

[JohnR]

Marty, a wash may be ok but make sure you have a week for them to dry... Some places sell wader hangers that will allow you to hang dry much better and for the serious, there are even powered wader driers. Some chemical solutions to the smell, use something like Fabreze to get out the smell, this will certainly help. Other, more basic solutions will to stop storing your frozen mackerel in you shorts pocket as this will tend to warm and drip down your leg into your waders...just kidding <img src="/Images/biggrin.gif"><!--e7-->... Use the Fabreze, it's wonderful on other things that smell worse (when I found a dead eel under my Bronco's rear seat after not having any eels in the truck for a week <img src="/Images/Sad.gif"><!--e2--> )

I actually have wader hangars that I keep outside on a hook so I can hose them down. Then I put them in the shed on these special wader holders I got from Cabela's. I'll try the Fabreze. There are days when the waders smell worse than the mackerel. John, you haven't lived until your kid somehow manages to slip a bottle of formula under the back seeat of the car (and you go away for a week in the other car, leaving the first one in the summer sun). She's 25 years old now and I'm still pissed off! Maggots in my car, yech.

[JohnR]

LMAO,

Really worse than eels left for extended periods of time? There is a maggot factor there as well, almost as bad as 2 week old herring that you've forgotten about...

What's LMAO stand for?

[JohnR]

Laughed My A$$ Off....

[Marc Z]

Marty,
If you do wash them, I have found that the best way to dry them is to 1st hang them overnight, and then roll them back inside out as much as possible and then put them in front of the dehumidifier in the basement for 1 night and then they will be bone dry inside.
MZ

Thanks, Mark. That's advice I'll use when I put them away for the winter in Massachusetts, but up in Maine I don't have a basement. I've been thinking more about it, and the problem is much worse when I fish at night and again the very next morning when the outsides have never had a chance to dry. If I stop fishing in the morning and let the waders dry for an hour or two during the day, there's no problem. The same goes for when they're hanging in the dry shed from Sunday through Thursday. I'm going to try the Fabreze as a stopgap measure and go the dehumidifier route in October when I "hang em up".

BE WARY!!! JUST A FEW WEEKS BACK I DEVELOPED A FEW PUSTULES ON MY LOWERE LEGS. THOUGH I THOUGHT THEY WERE STRANGE PIMPLES AT FIRST, IT SEEMS THAT THEY WERE CAUSED BY A STAPH INFECTION. WHERE DID THE STAPH INFECTION COME FROM? MY WADERS! AND I CLEAN THEM CONSTANTLY. MY DR. TOOK A CULTURE OF MY LEG TO DETERMINE WHAT WAS CAUSING THE PAINFUL PUSTULES AND THEN NARROWED THE CAUSES DOWN TO A FEW THINGS. WHEN HE TESTED MY WADERS WITH A COTTON SWAB, HE FOUND THE EXACT FORM OF STAPHOLOCCACOUS AUREUS INSIDE. BE SURE TO CLEAN YOUR WADERS OUT/STORE THEM HANGING UPSIDE DOWN. THIS STAPH INFECTION GOT SO SERIOUS ONE DR. ADMITTED THAT THE NEXT STEP WOULD BE TO AMPUTATE MY LEGS. NOT FUN!!!

*** BE CAREFUL AND DO NOT SACRIFICE HEALTH BECAUSE A NEW PAIR OF WADERS MAY RUN YOU SOME MONEY ***