Astral Loyak Men’s Quick Dry Lightweight Shoes

These shoes amaze me. In summer all good fly fishers sets aside waders and cleated boots and wade in as little gear as sun and insects allow. I took them fly fishing and wet waded 5 hours (see gif of typical riffles). I came home, and in the process of cleaning them, found front and rear drains. I also noticed tiny manufactured cuts on the soles called “siping”. Siping makes Blizzak and X-Ice winter tires super grippy on ice, so grippy that when the light turns green, and you pull away responsibly on snow and ice, 3/4 of the way down the street, when you check your rearview mirror, everyone is still at the light playing bumper cars. Yes, significant insurance savings.

My knees and ankles aren’t great due to abuse and age. I’m a nervous and newbie wader on slippery, bowling ball sized (or larger) rocks. I use a wading staff but things get awkward when it floats away. These wading shoes inspire confidence in me. I found a 100′ long string of large, dark, white spotted boulders down the center of a side channel. I walked their spine like I was on a side walk, ignoring the 2′ deep water on either side.

Anyway, when I got home, fearing eventual damage to my super shoes, I found a backup pair at a local white water shop. They were only $90, but they weren’t the AC model. They’re lined with a robust mesh and lack the side panels of the AC model. I put both in my car, and the next time I went wading for 4 hours, I grabbed two. I left my wading socks in the car and wore just the shoes. Simms UPF50 bugstopper pants, shirt, gloves, and super shoes. No bugs, no burns, no socks and no slipping. Liberating. They make me feel like a wader 1/3 my age.

When I got home, and grabbed the shoes to clean them, I paused. One had blue laces, and the other brown. One was the model AC, and the other wasn’t. My actual wading age was showing. I waded for hours and didn’t know I used a primary and a backup shoe.

I took it up notch, fly fishing and wading two days in northern WY wearing just the ACs. I waded three rivers and a creek. Two rivers had softball sized rocks with loose gravel that got in the shoes. When I emptied them out they still rattled. It turns out the insoles come out (and go back easily) and a dozen pebbles were hiding under there. This is a useful bit of info, because when you clean them, remove the insoles, wash and dry them separately, and all’s good.

All in, I waded 11 hours. They rubbed some skin off the top of two toes on my left foot (I’ll spare you that pic). They’re brand new shoes and my feet were wet 11 hours over two days.

Getting to the creek involved walking through a late summer WY desert several times: no shades, no vest, thunderstorm, etc. The mesh insteps gathered loads of deep penetrating weed seeds and some fine sand. I spent a half hour with my tiny Swiss Army knife tweezers getting that out of the mesh.

These are now my whole summer “wading kit”, or until the water gets cold enough for waders with neoprene booties, and studded wading boots. Seven months in heavy gear, five months bare foot in super shoes. These things are reasonably priced, siped, durable, grippy, light, easy to clean, quick drying, and convenient. You don’t drive in waders and wading boots! You have to remove your regular gear, pull on the waders, and boots, and undo all that each time you plan to drive a while. With these, you put them on at home, drive to parking “near” the river, hike to it, wade and fish it, hike back, drive to your next venue, get dinner at Los Cabana Del Tequila, you name it. Wade, fish, drive, wine and dine confidently. These things are great.

Please excuse spelling and grammar errors, the shoes aren’t responsible.

I spend a lot of time in and around rivers and lakes with my dog. These provide pretty good traction on slick river rocks. Not a ton of protection to the foot, but that’s an expected trade-off for such light and fast drying platform. They have an excellent toe boz. The mesh does rub the top of my toes with long uses, but nothing severe on my foot. They’re also comfortable for me on shorter walks.

I absolutely love these water shoes! For one, they shed water very easily. No more water sloshing around in the neoprene shoes I had before. Second, they really fit well. Most of the water shoes I’ve had before are loose and tend to get stuck in the mud. Not these. I can move ninja-like over my small sailboat. And third, they look good enough to transition from boat and sea right into lunch at the club or drinks with the neighbors. These are keepers, and worth the extra cost in my book.

Astral has two rubber compounds and this model of shoe has the less gripper G.15 rubber. Their G.ss rubber is far more grippy. Regardless of the lack of grip, they fit great and are extremely comfortable considering how thin the midsole is. It’s very soft. I have not tried these on wet rocks yet but I think these will become my light weight approach shoes and water shoes.

Astral, if you’re reading this, put your G.ss rubber on all shoes. No one will complain about having more grip and any loss in durability will be moot as I am sure I’ll wear out the upper long before the outsole. Also your available colorways straight suck and or blow… I’ve already emailed your team with my offer to do some free design work for you to improve your designs and colorways. Stop with the gray and navy shoes. You’re a sports brand. Black is always gonna sell, but make some fun sports colors. Reference what adidas has been doing in their trail running shoes. Adidas used to be my go to as for a time you could get stealth rubber on many of their sports shoes. Adidas destroyed stealth and the brand five ten. Very sad, but Astral you have a chance to take over the serious outdoor sport shoe market. Climbing Approach shoes, canyon shoes, scrambling shoes, you can do this and it can be done with style.