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Next Generation SIMMS G3 Wader
By Dave Karczynski

An angler walking around a fly shop in their first pair of G3’s is a rite of passage, one that expresses in no uncertain terms that their trial period with the sport of fly fishing is over, that it’s time to leave the shore behind and wade in chest deep.


Before I made the leap I was in my 20s and my wader life was a revolving door sort of affair. Each year or two I’d buy a pair of cheap, billowing waders and clunky boots and locomote through the creeks like Neil Armstrong on the moon. They’d all invariably tear, leak or otherwise fail within a year or two, and I would be on to the next.


And then one year I took the leap and bought a new daily uniform. But little did I know that in addition to not leaking, my G3’s would change the way I fished. It became suddenly easy to clamber over log jams and under barbed wire fences, to put many more miles into a fishing day. That first pair of G3’s became like a pair of old jeans, growing so comfortable I wore them all day and sometimes, when the tent or tarp crapped out, all night as well. Me and my G3’s roamed further afield, too, branching out from Wisconsin’s Driftless to Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, Poland, Chile, and Labrador. And when I got a new pair of G3’s some 10 years later, it wasn’t because my first pair had waved the white flag. I just wanted a fresh set.


And now the next generation of G3 is upon us. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of their workhorse, SIMMS set out to make the G3 more bomb-proof than ever. The new G3 wader line features a 7.5% increase in tongue tear strength, a 23% increase in puncture resistance, and an 84% increase in pinhole puncture resistance. In addition to battening down all the waderly hatches, SIMMS improved breathability by a third—all the more reason for a new generation of maniacal angler to never take these bad boys off.


If you’re still getting new waders every other year, or waddling around your local trout stream like a cosmonaut on Mars, now’s a good time to consider transitioning to what just may be the hardest working piece of gear in the sport. The latest generation of G3 wader, available in both men’s and women’s, is already hoarding accolades, winning Best of Show, Best Men’s Waders and Best Women’s Waders at the 2022 International Fly Tackle Dealer Show. $599

Dave Karczynski

Dave Karczynski is a Michigan-based writer and photographer with a strong bent for difficult fish in impossible places. His by-line appears frequently in magazines across the industry, and he is also the author of two books—From Lure to Fly: Fly Fishing for Spinning and Baitcast Anglers and Smallmouth: Modern Fly-Fishing Methods, Tactics and Techniques. Check out more of Dave’s images on Instagram @davekarczynski.