Orvis Ultralight Convertible Wader Question

[fishjunkie]

Does and anyone experience with these waders?  I like the idea of being able to slide down the chest part of the waders to be similar to wading pants.  I wondering how bulky they feel when the chest part is lowered. 

I bought a pair of Patagonia waders about 6 years ago for the padded knees. They were expensive waders around 700 dollars. I was hoping to get 10 years out of them. I did do a fair amount of bushwhacking with them in the first 3 years. but since them I haven't used them that hard. They have been okay but started to leak last season. I seal the leaking seams but they started to leak above the heel on the neoprene boot.  I'm debating about living with them a couple more years since I'm not fishing that much anymore.

I'm tempted to go the cheap wader route and just plan on buying a new pair every 3 years which would work out the same price as an expensive pair. 

There's so much to choose from out there. 

[tika]

Patagonia has the best warranty/repair service in the industry. I returned two pair of waders, full chest wader and their original waist high. They then informed me that the chest high were repairable but they couldn't fix the waist high and gave me a $200 credit toward the purchase of any Patagonia product. When I contacted Patagonia to spend the credit toward a new pair of waist high and pay the difference ($200) they sent me the new pair for no additional charge, just the credit I had. They were shipped immediately and I received them within a week. The only cost to me was the initial shipping of two pair of waders. Worth the effort to send them back for sure!

 

[snuffy]

Back in the day when I was perpetually flat broke, I had a lot of experience with ultralight waders - all of it grim. They fall apart so fast as to be a false economy. The corollary to that is that they will fall apart in the middle of the trip you've been looking forward to all year. Save yourself the frustration.