Most my career has been fresh, however I have spent some time in the salt. but I never saw the advantage to wading over in a boat. Some areas are too shallow for a boat. I love wade fishing. Like kayak fishing, I find it more relaxing, but see covering more water in a boat advantageous. Just curious.

I'm not a wader, however if you look at the catches of trout in the springtime...you'll find most of the 30+ inch trout are from guys who wade. Keep in mind fish can be wary in pressured areas. They know when a boat is there...even water slapping the side of the boat makes noise. Wading allows for more stealth

Saltwater fish that waders are targeting are in water usually less than waste deep. Those shallow water fish have nowhere to escape from predators like deeper areas or structure. So they are very very skittish. Everything spooks em out big time. The boat is simply too loud. Walk 30 ft away from the boat and like magic start catching fish. They seem to stay at least casting distance plus 30 ft away.

Secondly there is always a very stiff wind on the coast. The boat drifts thru those areas too quickly.

Thirdly unlike freshwater structure which is usually very evident, salwater steucture is so very subtle you need to feel it with your feet or a pvc pole. The so very slight transitions from sand, to mud, to mud/shell mix, to lil grass, to inch deep mud vs waste deep mud etc. How well does your depth finder read in 18" or knee deep water??? Yea mine either. You need to feel that. It is very difficult to see a 4" depth change on the depth finder. Some of the saltwater structure we target is so subtle and smaller in area than the size of the boat. Once you know it is there you have a honey hole till the next major storm changes things.There may be a sandy pothole in the middle of some grass that is the size of a bathtub. Impossible to fish properly from a boat. We may cast into that single bathtub size pothole for hours. Either catching like crazy or waiting for that big girl to bite. Often times you can see that big girl.....she may only eat once every three days. You want to be there when she turns on. I had a 32" trout one time that had a 19" trout down her throat.... imagine eating 1/3rd of your body weight in one bite....

Fourth when the weather is hot.... get in the water!!! Its a very nice day in the water!!!

Fifth is surf fishing.....thats a whole other animal....

Sixth is access. Lots and lots of public access for walk in waders. You dont need a boat to go make it an awesome day.

Seventh i may have 6 customer plus me on the boat.... imagine 7 people on your bass boat slinging top water lures with three treble hooks each.... with the opportunity to wade we can all get out and spread out like a football line one guy walking along knee deep and spread each guy out along the depths till the last guy is high belly or chest deep. Find what depth they are feeding working together.

Something about catching 100 trout on top water lures down at their level right in front of your face. Almost indescribable.

I have customers book me to target trophy trout..... 100% of those trips are wade trips. We very rarely catch trophy trout from the boat and if we do it is always by accident doing something else. Rarely able to actually target trophy trout from the boat.

Remember the videos of Roland Martin wading along in Florida. Seems he was always saying this is the biggest bass i have ever caught.... always while wading....

Fishing is fun. Boat, wade, kayak, shore, it is all good, I like it all, anyway. No doubt, if you never put even a toe in the water, there are plenty of fish to be caught. All great points made above for getting out and wading. Know that the Texas and World record Speckled trout out of Florida were caught from the boat. Not sure about how deep the water was in the Florida one, it was an 18’ flats boat, and the fish was on a Zara Spook. The Texas Fish was caught in about a foot of water and Carl Rowland has talked about the advantage the boat gave him as an elevated platform to enable him to see the fish, before the fish saw him, so that he could make an accurate cast. If I can get elevated so that I can see the shallow structure, sign or fish without spooking the fish, I always feel like I have an advantage. Not always possible from a boat, skiff, kayak, paddle board, etc. as has been mentioned, but sometimes, the situation and conditions allow for it.

It's really simple.
We fish areas out of the boat.
We fish spots by wading.

Back in the 1970's, I was fishing on a pier between Aransas Pass, and Port A. A couple of ole boys from Oklahoma got into their float tubes and started across the ship channel. They got caught up in the outgoing current and headed toward the Gulf. I never did hear what happened to them.

It's fun, keeps you cool, becomes a total immersion into your environment and totally changes the experience... totally different than boat fishing.

Like Grem said.. stealth, ability to control where you fish without having to control the boat, number of big fish increases, plus it's great exercise.

Did I mention it was fun.

Also, educate yourself how to shuffle your feet to avoid stingrays and also vibrio (both of those can actually happen in a boat as well). There are some dangers to be aware of, but nothing that should stop you from doing it. Get educated about it and try it. Book a good wade fishing guide and tell him it will be your first time to wade. Tell him you want him to provide the gear that day.. and teach you what to get and not to get.

I have seen some of the best sunrises on a shoreline , with no one around for a mile it is so peaceful . That wouldn't have been the same in a boat .

I have learned more from wade fishing then fishing from the boat. I also lose track of time. Many of days I started wading crack of dawn only to get back to the boat 8 hours later amazed because it felt like 2 hours. For me at least quality of Fish is better wading as well.

The last time I tried wading, I was 10 miles offshore. It didn't work out very well.

Wade fishing reminds me of that old adage about jumping out of a perfectly good plane. (Why get out of a perfectly good boat?)

I love wade fishing!

to me it's like hunting out of a blind vs out on foot and stalk hunting..
both are great, the latter just puts you more "in the element"

We fished over the weekend, in the water before first light and didn't quit until about 6
90% of the time in the water..
I wouldn't have been so motivated in a boat

I like getting out and moving forward, I feel like I am actively fishing vs just sitting in a boat..
We do some drift fishing and very little anchored fishing..

I hear people say they think fishing is boring, I ask how they are fishing and it is always sitting in a boat, anchored and usually fishing with a cork.
I don't have the patience and find it boring as hell

It's all dependent on where and how you like to fish. The guy (or gal) who's content to soak croakers in the surf, or chuck plastic in the ICW, isn't going to have any use for wading. But some folks like to stalk fish in shallow water, and that's a wader's forte (provided the bottom is hard enough for wading). Many folks who fish from a boat prefer to get out and stalk their fish on foot. It's much stealthier. I have three kayaks, a SoloSkiff, and a 16' poling skiff. I like to sightcast fish with flies, and I get out and stalk them on foot when I can, whichever boat I'm using. I often stand in the yak and pole/paddle until I spot fish, then ease an anchor over and stalk the fish on foot. I will fish an area much more thoroughly while wading than I will in a boat. But with the boat, I can switch areas much easier than a wader can and I can cover water much faster if I need to. And I often fish all day without getting my feet wet, too. Many times while fishing a shoreline out of a kayak I've had jerks in airboats or duck boats blow out the area when they see I'm fishing it. With a boat, relocating isn't so hard.

I just returned from five days on the LLM in my poling skiff. Because my guest doesn't fish the way I do, and he isn't comfortable on the poling platform, I did almost no wading. We both caught a ton of fish; him his way and me with flies (many of them cast from the poling platform). We both had a large time.

So, it's all about how you like to fish. Some folks like Fords. Some prefer Chevys. Bottom line; you do it the way that you derive the most pleasure from. Fishing should be about enjoying yourself, not conforming to someone else's ideas about the best way to do it.

Yeah, we don't wade in mud. Life is way too short to battle poot mud.

As long as one stays out of most marsh ponds and knows where the really bad mud is... it's not too bad. No need to wade in knee deep mud to catch a big trout either.. there's plenty areas that are wadeable with some 3-4 inch mud and that's not a big deal. Plenty of other areas with hard as rock bottom with fish on them as well.