Advice Needed on Using A Wet Suit

[Bossgobbler23]

I really enjoy shallow water hunting. I normally use waders when its cold but sometimes get water coming through the armpit area. To fix that problem I just purchased a wet suit and tried it on. It feels pretty stiff and uncomfortable but I had on a pair of sweat pants and a sweat shirt underneath. How do you dress for this? Also since there is not a sealed foot area how do you prevent from getting the feet wet and cold? I did purchase the booties for this.

 

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[omnicognic]

I hate to break this to you, but wetsuits are stiff and uncomfortable! if you were able to put yours on over sweats, then you prob bought one too big! I wear mine with just my bvds and use a little dish soap to ease getting my bottoms on(it washes out while you swim) I recommend the same for one piece suits. for sake of being objective I will say that my experiences with a wetsuit may seem negative but once you have it on and in the water you will hardly notice! as far as your feet, booties are the way to go! for the head, which is where you lose the most body heat, I recommend a hood. I know somebody is gonna say that I got it all wrong and they aren't supposed to be like that, however being the large guy that I am, it doesn't get much better! I hope this helps! HH 8)

 

[weldermark]

omni i won't say that you got anything wrong but boss u need a dry suit not a wet suit to keep warm also for your own safety I'd suggest you take a class on this.


Mark

 

[surfrat96]

Lonewolfe couldn't have explained it any better! I've been wearing wetsuits for 30yrs as a surfer. Used to surf on the east coast pro circuit many moons ago sometimes out in the ocean while snowing! I've known some people who have used the dry suits, which you can wear clothes underneath, but the big advantage is if you get a tear in the suit while your in the water your clothes are gonna be soaked and you don't have the insulation like a wetsuit.

 

[nutso]

I also purchased a 7mm wetsuit this year and have yet to get in the water. Still snow on the ground. I plan on using it in shallow water(maybe 3-5 feet deep). The areas I plan on going are places I have waded for years while fishing. Some are local beaches on ponds and slow moving rivers. I got the same advise about taking a class, and I appreciate the concern, however, I see no need for it where I plan on going, if they swim there why would I need a class to snorkel and wade. While swimming in these places I have often dove down and examined everything and now I'll have a metal detector and a wetsuit.
Yes the wetsuit feels very unconfortable. The first one I purchased I had to send back as it pinched me under the arms. The second one doesn't do that and hopefully will feel even better once in the water. Good luck and happy hunting.

 

[loganworks]

I'll go with Lonewolfe also. A regular siut once you get wet will feel more comfortable then when you first put it on. The best for comfort though is one of the new hyper-stretch suits. The only thing you will want to be careful about is that it a wet suit will make you very boyant, you may want to invest in a weight belt to help with this. Be careful not to over weight yourself. You want to be able to still float.

 

[Darod]

Why don't you just use waders? Chest waders?

Rod

 

[nutso]

I occasionally will want to dive under, I've used waders and they provide little insulation in 40 degree water. Plus if you fall down they fill with water, some places are rocky bottom and very slippery. Felt sole waders are better but getting wet is the pits.

 

[Wayne from Maine]

I have used a wet suit for shallow hunting for years. I wore one out (actually I out grew it). I rarely go in the water without It gave me several feet of depth over my buddy in waders. With gloves I can get into Maine water by May (even if I have to break the ice) after the first 2-3 minutes it is comfortable. Boots are a must or you will lose all of the warmed water.

 

[lobsterman]

i can't beleive that you got a wetsuit on over sweat's. that's funny

i'll start with safety first, if you are going to use either a wetsuit or a drysuit i'd say at least get some advice from a local dive store, even if you didn't buy your suit from them, most would be willing to offer you a little bit of free advice that may just save your life, people have died wearing a dry suits and not wearing counter weights, remember that if you dive down to get something all of the air / bouyancy will end up at your feet. but using too much weight and you'll sink like a stone .
wetsuits can be dangerous also... it was November and i was diving down cutting rope off the prop. and shaft when a zipper on my wetsuit let go, after only about 5 minutes in the water i almost didn't have the strength to get myself back out of the water, the cold water actually drained all my strength away.
as far as getting into a wetsuit... a lycra skin suit would be helpful or you could use the old divers trick of wearing panty hose, don't laugh it works ( the farmer johns slip right on easily over them ), i'd definatly use dive boots,gloves and a hood, but if your not swimming or using fins an old pair of work boots would do the job and would probably hold up to the abuse better. a little vasaline on the wrists also helps to keep out the cold water. hope this helps.
Pat.

 

[nutso]

Lobsterman: I'm talking about 3-5 feet of water not deep dives. I appreciate the concern though.

 

[Bossgobbler23]

Thank you everybody for the advice. I think the size I got is correct after reading all the feedback. My shallow water hunting is only done up to 5 feet. I don't dive. I like neoprene chest waders but in 5 foot depths and reaching to lift the scoop, I sometimes get water in the arm pit area. The snow here is beginning to melt. I would like to try my new wetsuit. I appreciate the advice about the pantyhose but if my wife caught me...lol

 

[GunFarce]

Back in the days before the neoprene type drysuit you get today, a drysuit was a rubberbag with arms and legs, and sealed around your waist by folding the jacket to the pants, or twisting the excess rubber from the hole you climbed into and putting a clamp on it..Your warmth came entirely from your insulated underware.. (the pre-curser to todays woolly bears) When the first wetsuit came out in the fifties, there was no nylon linings, and you had to cover yourself with talc to get into it. Rips, and tears were common, as was 'wet suit glue', basically just contact rubber cement.. I have spent well over a hour surface supplied, under 3 feet of ice in a 1/4" suit, and was 'almost' comfortable.. If a suit fits, your warm, if not. your cold. If water 'moves' in your suit, it does not fit. there should be a little slack under the arms, in the crotch (thank god), and behind the knees. water should 'seep' into these areas by slowly squeezing past your skin, as your body heat warms it up.. The suit should be skin tight.. I have wet suit boots, that have tough rubber soles, and will stand up to virtually any rocky beach.. If you shop around, and ask questions you can find exactly what you need.. One of the side benefits of a wetsuit, is you float like a cork in one. If the current catches you, its unlikely (without weights) you will be sucked under. I personally used about 18lbs of lead in fresh water to be nutrally buoyant, so thats 18lbs of positive buoyancy.. If you like to duck dive down, and you don't have weights on, yer gonna have a tough time!

 

[Dinkydick]

I used to make wet suits in the 50's. I would take your body measurements and cut a
pattern making it 1-inch smaller on every dimension. We used Argo corn starch to get into the
suit. I to have spent 2-hours under the ice with one of my 1/4-inch (no nylon) neoprene wet suits
and came out completely dry and covered with Argo corn starch. The worst thing they ever invented
was nylon covered rubber for wet suit material. It defeated the purpose of the wet suit. But, the newbies didn't whan to fight putting on the wet suit. They have been freezing ever since. Wish I
knew where to get some of that old type neoprene and a can of "Black Magic".

Dinkydick

 

[GunFarce]

Hey Dinky.. We used to make that Black Magic.. Well, actually we used to just bottle it.. The contact cement was a toluene base, and we added 'black ink' to the mixture..
The whole secret was to put it on both sides and let it dry, on both sides, until the back of your finger(the front has oil) would not feel any tackiness at all, then squeeze it together as hard as you could.. The neoprene, Usually skin two sides G-231N from rubatex, would rip to shreds, before the glued seam would let go.. The big mistake most newbie divers would do, is only let the glue dry till it was 'tacky' ...big mistake... If it's 'tacky' there is still solvent in the glue and the seam will never stay repaired.. Thats why they call it 'contact cement'.. Ahh I miss all the old tricks, from gluing, to patching up the old canvas suits and building up the leathers in the mkv breastplate with old chart paper..ha...The kids today have no idea how much fun their missing.. By the way, after scraping off layers of corn starch, as a kid, ha.. I would swipe as many sticks of marking soapstone from the metal shop as possible, and grind it down when no one was around... Just stuck a box under the shop grinder, and went to it..ha.. Soapstone powder was ideal, it didn't cake up. and it repelled water.. Most dive shops in the later 50's stocked it, (soapstone talc) and by the time I was old enough to work in the trade (early 60's) it was a pretty common product

 

[Dinkydick]

Hi :

All this talk brings back old memories. When making wetsuits, the tight fitting of the rubber on the
body worked good. On the feet and hands loose fitting rubber was best. I would only make three finger mittens. This way I could move my index finger next to my thumb and two fingers would stay warmer than individual fingers. On boots I made them to fit loose to retain trapped air for insulation. It took me a long time to figure this out. My wet suit pants extended up to the arm pits and my jackets (with beaver tail) went down to the hips so I had double rubber over my chest. It worked good. I even made a one piece suit (unheard of at that time) with a regular zipper down the back for entry. It also worked good. Do you remember the Isothermic suits that were being sold for $19.95 in Skin Diver mag at that time? I had one of those also. It was a combination wet suit dry suit with a waist entry which used a ring and rail for sealing. The ring and rail was a large O-ring and a hard rubber square thing with a groove cut into it for the O-ring to mate to. It leaked and the suit was already hard from age even though it was being sold as new. They were beige in color. How about Scuba totes dry suits?

I could go on

Take care and be careful when diving. Things happen real fast. I don't want to come and recover your dead bodies. Done that to.

Dinkydick

 

[nutso]

Got out with my Fisher 1280-x today. Not in the water but I at least got to try it out for the first time. Found only junk but did bury some coins, poptops, nails etc and messed with the discrimination. Looks like around here I can go with max sensitivity and 3 discrimination to make the nail signal break up a bit. Any higher and I lose the nickle. I already know the small gold rings will be hard to find as I held one in front of it this winter and I had to get within 2 inches to get any signal at all with max sens and zero disc.. That doesn't bother me, they are few and far between around here, people were poor in these parts. I still have my xlt and my spectrum for land hunts and I love them. Can't wait to get in the water. There is a small beach on my way home from work that just cleared of snow yesterday. Well, happy hunting folks, tis the season! YEEEHAW!

 

[GunFarce]

Hi Dink;; Yup Scuba totes (solomarx rubber co.) were 22.95 U.S. (brown or yellow) if i remember right.. Years later, we had totes, (the same company) vulcanize rubber soles to neoprene boots (this was in the 70's).. a company I was involved with, bought the rights to Harvey Wetsuits in Seatile, and opened a factory in Toronto.. We also had a compressor assembly shop and made hydrostatic testing equipment at our shop in Miami. So, I used to travel between Miami, Seattle, Chicago, (you mentioned grobans in a post a long time ago, I spent many an hour routing through their shop for those old walter kiddie 3000 psi compressors).. Palley's in California is another junque goldmine..
Yup.. Them were the days.. It's nice to look back once in a while and see where you've been, and whats come of it.... I even seen one of my old students on a T.V. documentary flying the DeepRover a thousand or more feet down, in a trench off the Hawaiian Islands looking for Giant Squid.. Now THATS something i would like to do yet... Damn kids get to have all the fun..

 

[resq937]

WET SUITS ARE GOOD BOSS--I AM THE ONLY WATER RESCUE EMT IN MY AMBULANCE AND THESE ARE UNCOMFORTBLE DRY----FOR BEST RESULTS SOAK IT THE DAY BEFORE SO THAT IT IS WET WHEN YOU PUT IT ON----YOU WILL FREEZE FOR A FEW MINUTES BUT IT NEEDS TO BE WET SO THAT ONCE IN THE WATER YOU WILL RETIAN YOUR BODY HEAT VIA THE SUIT AND WARM UP FASTER---ALSO ENJOY WHITE WATER AND THE ONLY BAD PART OF THAT IS PUTING ON THE SUIT IN THE MORNING---
I AM STILL SAVIN UP FOR THE UNDERWATER DETECTOR SO I AM JEALOUS


RESQ937

 

[GunFarce]

I've been a commercial diver for over 30 years, and I don't think I've 'ever' initiated a first time in dive, with a 'wet' wet suit by choice.. But if you think it makes you warmer, 'thinking it' is all you need I guess... Wetsuits are generally used only by sport divers now, if your going to be in cold water for any length of time, and accomplish any useful work, you might as well be comfortable in a modern drysuit with a good woolybear..