Update: Vibram FiveFingers KSO
11:32 AM | Author: Mark
This is just an update in my review of the Vibram FiveFingers KSO shoes that I posted yesterday.

I finally got a few hours to spare in this unbelievably busy week, so I hit the stream to see what the trout were up to. I'd originally planned to just put on a pair of hip boots that I keep in my car at all times for just such an occasion, but then decided that it'd be a great opportunity to try out my KSOs (that I had on), in the water.

So, once I got to the stream (in this case, the Loyalhanna), I simply strung up my rod (Diamondglass 7'-0" 4wt), rolled up my jeans, and headed for the water.

The first thing I noticed was that the water was cold!

The second thing I noticed was the unbelievable amount of feeling the FiveFingers offered as I walked around the freestone streambed. Far better than the Teva sandals I normally use to wet wade, and obviously leaps and bounds better than hip boots or wading boots, I could feel each and every pebble underfoot.

Whether because of the individual toe pockets, the flexible sole, the zigzag siping, or, more likely, a combination of the three, I found myself walking around in the water far more naturally. While wading in hip boots is normally a cause for abandoning all fishing and worrying about secure placement of each step, the FiveFingers seemed to find solid purchase anywhere my foot fell on the slick, rounded stones in the Loyalhanna, freeing up my concentration, and allowing me to fish as I moved.

The Loyalhanna, like most freestone streams, has few, if any, jagged stones in the streambottom, so I didnt have to worry about sharp portrusions jabbing me underfoot, and the seperate pockets allowed my toes to flare a bit, increasing my footing in the silty sand that covers slower portions of the stream.

When I was ready to head home (or rather, when I had to tear myself away from fishing and head back to the busy schedule), it was nice to have such good traction for navigating up the bank in wet shoes. This, however, proved to be the only drawback of the FiveFingers that I've encountered so far: several times, I picked up stems of weeds and blades of grass between my toes. While it wasn't a huge issue, you definitely cant just bust through the weeds like you're used to doing with rubber hip boots.

When I got back to the car, I took off the shoes to see if the KSOs really kept stuff out, and was pleasantly surprised. While there were a very few tiny bits of sand and leaf litter in each shoe, the total amount was insignificant. In each shoe, I could count the individual bits of 'stuff' that got in. There was about 10 grains of sand in each shoe. Not hardly enough to notice. Overally, I was highly impressed, as I thought the elastic around the ankle would keep largers bits out, but allow silt to get all through the inside of the shoe. Nice job there, Vibram.

Back at the car, I took off my KSOs, dried my feet, and put on a pair of regular shoes, tossing the Vibrams behind my seat to dry. This was at about 6:30pm. Now, in the mean time, they were in my car, not in a normal airflow situation, but this morning they were still a little bit damp, something to consider if you plan on wearing them as an everyday shoe, or in extremely wet surroundings. I'm sure while being worn they'd dry much quicker.

By the way...I had one take on a #22 snowshoe caddis that I didn't get a good hookset on, and caught a nice healthy brown male on a #12 olive wulff. I saw alot of caddis fluttering around, in the #16-#20 neighborhood, but didn't see any trout eating any caddis. My guess is that standard caddis patterns will become effective very soon, and will remain effective until the first good frost.

...this IS a fishing blog, after all.
While the woolly bugger is a simple, highly effective fly that nearly every beginning tyer learns, this variation incorporates a woven body, to challenge intermediate tyers to learn a new technique that makes very realistic bodies, and a wide range of body color choices for nymphs, streamers, wet flies, and buggers.

I was asked to create this tutorial for the Fly Tying section on the FishUSA forums, so I thought I'd post it here as well.

Woven Body Woolly Bugger Tutorial


Materials:

Hook: Mustad 36890 Up-Eye Salmon Hook

Thread: 8/0 Uni (Black)

Weight: .020 Lead Wire

Tail: Marabou Blood Quill

Body: Embroidery Floss, 2 colors, woven

Hackle: Rear: Short barb streamer saddle hackle
Front: Long, webby, strung neck hackle


Instructions:


1. Place hook in vise and wrap lead onto shank, leaving plenty of room in front of the bend to tie marabou tail. Wind up to the point where the wire from the hook eye ends. Press wraps up against the end of the hook wire and ensure that the lead underbody is smooth & even.



2. Select a piece of marabou in your chosen color for the tail. In this case, i'll be using hot pink. I prefer to use the "blood quill" marabou for bugger tails.


3. Tie in marabou tail in a length about equal to the hook shank. Trim the butt of the quill and tie down ends.


4. Select a saddle hackle in an appropriate color. This is a good place to use the hackle on a dry saddle with barbs to long or soft to be of any use in a dry fly. I have a few cheap saddles from Keough that I like to use on my buggers, but any saddle with shorter barbs will work. A size #6 salmon hook is shown for scale.


5. Prepare the hackle by trimming away the "fluff" at the base...


6. ...and sweeping the fibers of the feather 'against the grain', leaving a portion of the fibers at the tip in their natural position.


7. Tie in the hackle over the top of the shank, protruding off of the rear end of the hook over the bend (sorry about the slightly blurry image, but you get the idea). Be sure to leave a bit of space between the tie-in point and where your swept back fibers start. This will give you room to start wrapping your hackle later, and will make for a neater looking fly.

8. Select two contrasting colors of embroidery floss. This can be purchased at nearly any craft store, and, unless you get special neon, metallic, or other specialty flosses, the standard colors are quite cheap and available in a wide array of colors. I got three colors of this floss for just over $1 today.


9. Cut a 6-12" strand of each color. 6" will be just about right for a single fly, with enough of a tag leftover to hold comfortably. 12" will be long for the first few flies, but will tie as many as 3-5 flies or more, thus there's far less waste if you tie multiples. Even so, at 35-40 cents per mini-skein, you dont have to feel too awful bad about wasting a few inches.


10. Tie both strands down the length of the shank, extending out over the rear of the hook. Tie in the top color (top of the hook shank after weaving) on the side closest to you, and tie the bottom color on the side opposite you. After both strands of floss are secure, try to smooth out any lumps in the existing body with thread, then whip finish and trim the thread off, otherwise, the bobbin will interfere with the weaving process. Alternately, you can tie a half-hitch to secure the thread, then hang the bobbin straight back off of the rear of the hook somehow, and weave over the standing thread. Then, when you finish the weave and tie off, you'll have a small piece of thread running the length of your body that will need to be cut off with scissors. Either method will work.


Beginning the Weave
11. Start the weaving process by first orienting your vise so that the hook shank is pointing directly toward you. This will make weaving much easier, and will enable you to weave the entire body without having to let go of the floss, and it will also allow you to weave tightly, without tying knots, until you tie things off at the front end of the body. Once the hook is facing you, bring the top color, in this case, the white floss, over the top of the hook shank.


12. Pass the top thread beneath the bottom thread, passing under from the bend toward the eye. Grasp the end of the top thread with your left hand and the end of the bottom thread with your right. From this point on, you should not have to let go of the floss threads until you are ready to finish up the weave.


13. Pass the top (white) thread back up over the top of the hook shank to the other side. From this point on, the top thread should never get lower than halfway down the side of the shank, and the bottom thread should never pass higher than halfway up the shank.


14. Bring the bottom thread down, underneath the shank, to the left side of the hook (the top thread is already over here). In the picture, the 'knot' formed where the top and bottom threads hook each other is not in the correct position. Ideally, you should keep these hooked knots in line with one another, on opposite sides of the shank, halfway up/down the side. Dont worry, though, the knot is easy to adjust by pulling on the ends of the threads. Just get it where you want it and keep some tension until you complete the next hook-weave, which will lock the previous one in place.


15. Now bring the top thread under the bottom thread to once again 'hook' it, then pass it back up over the top of the body. This will have the effect of crossing your hands, and will seem awkward, but it's the correct method. The picture is taken after passing the top thread under the bottom one, but before carrying it over the shank. In the picture, I'm holding both strands of floss in one hand, but only so I can take the picture. While weaving, the ends of the threads should never leave your grasp.


16. Now bring the bottom thread back under the hook shank to the right side of the hook. This completes one set of the hook weave, and uncrosses your arms. To continue the weave, just repeat these steps, with the threads hooking one another on opposite sides of the shank.


17. Finish the weave off. This can be a little tricky, because you need to maintain tension on the floss strands and restart your thread at the same time. For me, the easiest way to do this is to weave until both colors of floss are on the left side of the shank (still looking down from above), then wrap the top color up over one last time, then pull both strands down. The hook shank will be supporting the top thread and the top thread in turn will support the bottom thread. With both threads being pulled down, transfer the tips of both threads into your right hand. This is a good time to swing the vise back around to the normal tying position.


18. Then pick up your bobbin with your left hand and grasp the free end of the thread along with the floss in your right hand and pass your bobbin up and over the hook shank.


19. Make a few tight wraps, dropping the bobbin on the far side of the shank (because your right hand will prevent standard wrapping). After 2-3 good tight wraps, binding the tag ends of the floss down, you can let go with your right hand.


20. Trim the tag ends of both strands of floss and your recently restarted thread, and build a smooth thread taper. If you didnt trim your thread, but rather had it hanging off the back of the vise, steps 17-19 would change by having you lift the thread over the back of the body, pinching it with the strands of floss, and making your wraps. Then once you had the floss tied off, not only would you have the tag ends to trim, but also the short length of black thread between the tail and the front of your body.


21. Palmer your saddle hackle forward over the body. As you wind the hackle, it should rest in the notches in the sides of your woven body made by the points where the floss threads hooked each other on the sides.



22. Select a webby piece of strung neck hackle, with long fibers, in an appropriate color. A #6 hook is shown for scale.


23. Pull the fibers back, against the grain, except for a small bit at the tip, to give you a place to tie in. I like to leave the fluffly base of the feather on this hackle to make it easier to grip, which, for me, eliminates the need to use hackle pliers.


24. Tie in the piece of strung neck hackle by the tip, along the thread taper you just made on your fly.


25. Trim the hackle tip, advance your thread to the eye, and wind up the entire hackle (the webby portion only, do not wind up the fluffy feather base). Be sure to gently sweep your fingers back from the eye of the hook toward the bend prior to making each wrap, to avoid binding down any hackle fibers pointing forward. At this point, its not critical to keep your fibers angled in any direction, as long as they're not getting bound down by your hackle stem in a position out over the eye of the hook. If this happens, just back up, sweep your fingers back along the fly, and place another hackle wrap immediately in front of the last one. Tie off the hackle and trim.


26. Build a thread head that extends back to just over the front edge of the hackle. This will give your hackle collar a swept-back effect that, in my opinion, makes for a much better looking fly. Try to make this head small, neat, and smooth. If it turns out a little bulky, though, don't worry. The fish dont mind. Whip finish, trim your thread, and apply a coat of Sally Hansens' Hard-as-nails if you desire.

The Finished Fly:




Well, its been quite some time since I've posted anything here at Tailing Loops, longer still since I posted a review, so here goes.

While this isn't a review of a piece of fly fishing equipment, a book, or some other directly-related item, I feel its worth talking about.



The Vibram FiveFingers line of shoes are a radical departure from typical shoe design. Made for a wide range of activities from walking to yoga, running, trekking, and even boating, these shoes are designed to allow your foot to do what it was designed to do: support your body.

The FiveFingers line consists of four specific models of shoe: Classic, Sprint, KSO, and Flow. The Classic is the baseline model, while the Spring incorporates a strap across the open top, the KSO provides a closed-top that fits against the underside of the ankle made of light synthetic fabric, and the Flow replaces the light material with neoprene, for water and cold-weather activity. For my purposes, I picked up a pair of the KSOs (short for keep-stuff-out), and that's the specific shoe I'm dealing with in this review.

Taking a minimalist approach, Vibram's goal with this shoe is to provide all the sensations and benefits of walking barefoot, with the protection of their TC-1 rubber to eliminate the dangers posed by sun-baked asphalt, bees, and bits of glass and metal that normally make going barefoot a bad idea, especially in urban areas. Vibram approached the design of this shoe based on the idea of letting feet do what they were meant to do.

The design of the human foot is superb for walking, running, and jumping. While many animals are capable of impressive sprints, the human body, specifically the feet, are made for long-distance running, and some tribal people in Africa actually participate in persistence hunting, where they will literally chase antelopes and other animals to exhaustion. Wearing rigid, inflexible shoes prevents your feet from flexing and adapting properly to conditions. Many common foot problems today are caused or aggravated by shoes that impede the function of the foot, or provide too much rigidity and support, allowing the joints and muscles to weaken. In fact, it is believed that many high-end running shoes do more harm than good! To the contrary, the FiveFingers provide basic protection and cushioning for the foot without interfering with the natural motions of the foot and toes while walking. It is also believed that walking barefoot may improve posture, strengthen feet, ankles, and calves, and reduce back pain. With these shoes, your feet will be able to function properly again.

Description

The first things you notice when looking at any of the FiveFingers shoes are the toes. These minimalist shoes feature individual pockets for every toe on your foot, literally fitting like a glove. This design keeps your toes spaced out, which allows them to settle individually onto the ground with each step, improving balance and footing. It also means that these shoes wont keep all your toes crowded together, basically acting as an extension of your foot, rather than the individual elements they really are. While the feeling of the fabric between the toes is unusual, and at first, maybe even uncomfortable for some, once you get past that, the freedom your toes have while wearing these shoes is great. When out on a trail, the increased footing and stability is subtle but definitely noticeable, as your toes each settle independently of the rest.

The second most striking feature of the shoe is the sole. The soles are thin, and flex to conform to the ground you're walking on and carry the feeling through to your foot. As you walk, you can easily tell the difference between the difference surfaces you're walking on, from grass, to weeds, to dirt, gravel, pavement, brick, etc. The rubber also does a good job of protecting your foot from pointy objects, and while a large (baseball-sized) pointy rock under your arch will still be uncomfortable, you can run across gravel, even big, rough gravel, without worry.

First Impressions

As advertised, the KSO, with its full upper, does indeed keep stuff out. I took my puppy, Taka for a walk in my KSOs and we covered gravel, concrete pavement, grass (freshly cut), and sand. When we got home and I took my shoes off, there wasn't even one blade of grass or grain of sand inside. The mesh upper is elastic enough to remain form-fitting around the base of the ankle, throughout its range of motion, and the strap keeps the shoe from working loose as you walk, even up and down steep grades.

The tread on the sole is not very aggressive, as you can see from the picture, incorporating some low-relief scalloping in the high-wear areas, and siping (tiny zig-zag patterns that spread open as you step to form treads) everywhere except the arch and toes. This fairly tame tread design, combines with the Vibram rubber to give surprisingly good traction, even on wet grass. I was also surprised by how much "grip" I was able to get on wet or loose surfaces just from my toes being able to make individual contact with the ground.

The shoe is unmistakable unique in appearance, and although nobody has said anything, I've already gotten a few curious looks in stores and on sidewalks. They're the type of shoes one might call "dorky", and I'd imagine its one of those things that you either love it or hate it. Its definitely not for everyone, but if you don't mind standing out a little and getting some quizzical stares, the FiveFingers is a great shoe for exercise as well as everyday wear. I wear my KSOs without socks, though I may get a pair of the Injinji toe socks to wear with them once the weather cools off, as the thin mesh upper is very breatheable, and will allow feet to get quite cold.

Fit

Out of the box, these shoes can be a challenge to don properly. Try as I might the first day I had them, I couldn't convince the toes beside my big toes to go in the right pockets of the shoes. It's best to start with the big toe and work your way out, though, at first, it will take you a bit longer to put on these shoes than your normal sneakers. Once they're on though, these KSOs do a good job of staying secure to your foot, combining the form fitting fabric of the top of the shoe with an adjustable velcro strap that wraps around the heel, then over the top of the foot. I've read some reviews and blogs that made it seem impossible to do, but within 2-3 days, the FiveFingers are not at all difficult to put on. Yes, they do take a few seconds more attention than most shoes, but it really isn't a big ordeal. Like Vibram suggests, just start with the big toe and fit each toe in one at a time, and usually, you'll get the shoe on within a few moments. If not, just wiggle your toes and guide them into the proper places with your hands. When you get them in place, it's all worth it.

Once I got the shoes on my feet, they fit great and stayed secure on my foot, almost like a second skin. The entire FiveFingers line is light, and my KSO model weighs in at 5.7 oz per shoe. This lightness really helps enhance the experience of "barefooting". My toes at first didn't seems to want to wort themselves into the proper pockets of the shoes, but once they're in, they really stay put quite well, and the mesh upper stretches across the top of my foot without any feeling of being pulled tight.

One of my biggest issues when buying shoes is that while I'm not flat-footed, my arches are fairly low and wide. This pretty much rules out any true running shoe for the most part. With their high, cushioned arches for increased support, just walking in most of them is a painful experience for me. Normally, I just end up getting a vaguely defined "Casual" shoe, or I spend quite a long time trying on various athletic shoes until I find one with an arch to suit me. Though I don't skateboard, I've found that "skate shoes", like Vans are typically a good choice for me as well. Still, finding anything between a walking shoe and a boot has been challenging. These shoes presented no arch challenge at all, and in fact, feel great on my feet, conforming to the shape of my arch with every step.

One of the first things I noticed when taking my first few steps in the FiveFingers was that, without the thick sole of a conventional shoe, my stride was a little bit off. Each time I wear them, it gets more natural, but I did notice that just wearing these shoes has changed both my posture and stride, hopefully for the better.

The Verdict

Overall, in the short time I've had my Vibram FiveFingers KSO shoes, I've been very pleased with them. The separate toe pockets and thin sole feel unlike any shoe I've ever worn before, and the difference feels great. They offer an improved level of balance and allow the toes to move independently, improving posture, stride, and, in the long term, making your foot stronger.

Though I have yet to do so, I plan to wear my FiveFingers while fishing a few times, to see how they do in a flowing stream, on silty and sandy bottoms and slippery, moss-covered rocks. The Vibram website indicates that the KSOs are recommended for flats fishing, so I'd imagine that they'd hold up fairly well in a trout stream too!

For anyone who does any amount of hiking, you know what a difference lighter footwear can make in terms of fatigue and hiking enjoyment. These shoes are quite light and even short walks are a noticeable pleasant activity. The 'barefoot' feel of these shoes makes a walk in a pair of FiveFingers unlike a walk in any other shoe. Just feeling the textures, temperatures, and subtle details of the ground beneath you makes any walk a very interesting experience, and you'll be strengthening your foot and ankle muscles in the process! Long story short: if you like walking in the woods, walking barefoot, or walking in general, try on a pair of FiveFingers.