i am thinking about developing a pluff mud shoe. i was thinking about a design that is like a snow shoe. anyone have any ideas or created one themselves. i am open to ideas
Pluff mud shoes are a great idea, however I don’t know if the snowshoe idea would work as snow is a little more compact as where the mud would slip straight through the holes and the large surface area would make them near impossible to get out,if you could create a successful shoe you could make a pretty big profit as it’s everywhere down here!
I’m so salt life I sued google earth for giving away all of my fishing spot’s.
I’m not sure about the shoe design but you better have one heck of an insurance company standing behind you lol.
Pluff doesn’t compact like snow typically does (I’ve spent my time in both… more time in the pluff in ways I’d rather forget lol). I’m sure this can be done, but your going to hit a catch-22 that snow doesn’t do to you.
First, you’d want something the mud can’t pass through-- so something like a solid HDPE might work well (1/4" thick maybe?). That would help distribute your weight over a flat solid area. But then, you have a problem with lifting your foot. The same non-porous surface that made it easy to step down will now make it very hard to lift your foot back up (suction effect).
I think your best bet will be something with a fine (1/8"?) mesh size on a frame, like snow shoes, but the effectiveness will vary greatly depending on where you step, and pluff mud varies in consistency from one footstep to the next so much that finding the right compromise will be tricky.
StuckonLand basically said the same thing, sorry, I didn’t mean to parrot lol, we were typing at the same time.
However, if StuckonLand is willing to be your prototype tester, he might be able to change his name to StuckInTheMud.
Does not the crane walk on the mud? Does not the heron tread on pluff? Observe the ways of the bird, young grasshoppah. Man who tread in pluffmud smell terrible and curse loudly.
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[i]Originally posted by killswitch[/i Man who tread in pluffmud smell terrible and curse loudly.
Ain’t that the truth!!!
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When I was a kid we used to walk the marshes around Thunderbolt, GA a lot. We would walk across the marsh and camp on a little hammock we called Rabbit Island. We cut pieces of plywood about 2’ long and 1’ wide and screwed an old pair of tennis shoes to them. Worked pretty good, but we probably didn’t weigh over 100 pounds and didn’t have real good sense anyway 
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
Marine Surveying & Repair
I’ve seen a shoe like you’re describing already . It was a picture of a couple of grizzly old dudes standing in the mud. One with the shoes standing on top next to the other sunk up to his knees. They were advertising in a duck hunting catalog, maybe Mack’s Prairie Wings.
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Originally posted by redfishflyfisheri am thinking about developing a pluff mud shoe…
</font id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”>You ain’t going to walk on pluff mud.I’ll check back with you in another 20 years and see if you have made any progress.
i think something like those glove shoes may be best. you know, the ones with the individual toes. maybe a cross between them and what cracker larry described.
- I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
I remember reading about how the Viet Cong used to take truck tires, cut them down and attach them to boots, and used them to traverse the mud flats along the Mekong Delta. Kind of like “mud skating”. Let us know what you come up with and if it works.
Narcosis
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You ain't going to walk on pluff mud.
Ditto.
I think there are some real safety issues. Idiots will buy your product. Pluff mud shoes and head deep water sounds very dangerous.
I think this is an awesome idea. I have been trying to think through this too. Don’t listen to the nay-sayers.
I think you need something that will spread your weight, but still let water through when you pick up your foot. I think a standard snowshoe could work, but it might be difficult to walk in since there will be some suction. I think you need something narrower. Perhaps something more along the lines of cross country skis, heavily modified of course.
Obviously you wouldn’t want to go walking out on a huge flat, but they could be great in those areas where the substrate turns from solid to pluff mud intermittently.
Let me know if you want to bounce some ideas around, and definitely let me know if you figure something out!
I never mess wiht pluff mud over my knees… Yvon Chenard (sp) the Patagonia dude, took some small snow shoes to the bahamas and tried it on the mud there, from what I hear it is not as deep and soft as pluff mud, and they failed miserably. If you are really set on a pluff mud shoe I suggest you go find a nice waist deep spot and go play around for a little bit, make sure ya bring a friend to help ya out, but you’ll see there really isn’t a need for those… of course this is just my opinion.
now a good wading shoe thats affordable, and I mean less than $80, I think would do much better for you. I wear old Chuck Taylors… they are light, dry quick and protect my feet and ankles from oysters. They also have enough traction on the sole to let me walk but not agressive enough to pick up mud and fill the sole… Something with newer materials than the old canvas of chucks that is light, quick to dry and a good sole that won’t scar up a boat deck will sell and make ya meeelions…
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How long you been messing around the marsh? Best thing I know of is tennis shoes laced up tight or the old vietnam jungle boots laced up tight. They won’t help you walk in it but at least they won’t come off when you get in it by accident. If you get in the right pluff mud what we always called “boogie mud” you more or less have to swim your way out.
You can’t catch fish on a dry line
Had a great day one summer. Some guy who had little experience with pluff mud but had lots of experience with PBR grounded his boat with his family on board; wife and a couple of kids. We told (yelled at the guy) to stay in the boat. He jumped out, sunk up to his ‘brains’ and tried to crawl back to the boat, that was only a foot or two away. Oysters started cutting him up, kids were crying, wife was hysterical… tide wasn’t going to turn for hours… We got him back in the boat but, don’t know if he made it to the hospital or what kind of infections he may have had to deal with?
Don’t worry about the liability of telling people that they can “walk on pluff mud”. 
The risk of infections from cuts have me always wearing my chest waders when I’m going to be out in pluff mud that’s beyond halfway up my shin. I do not mind being a wuss if it means I don’t get a flesh eating bacteria lol, supposedly it’s brackish conditions that it thrives in.
I’ve had several bad experiences with pluff mud, and
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sunk up to his 'brains'
sums it up real good. You ain’t going to walk in pluff mud with anything. Even as dumb kids with boards screwed to our tennis shoes, we knew to avoid the pluff. It will swallow you, then the tide will come in and drown you. When the mud is up to your brains, it don’t matter how tight your shoes are laced either
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me always wearing my chest waders when I'm going to be out in pluff mud that's beyond halfway up my shin.
Halfway up the shins aint pluff mud, it’s just mud The only way out of pluff mud is to lay down and swim.
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
Marine Surveying & Repair
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Originally posted by Redfish_matt…supposedly it’s brackish conditions that it thrives in.
</font id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”>I could give you the names of a couple of guys that would be happy to tell you about the infections (and threat of infection) they dealt with from cuts in Charleston harbor. One is a finish carpenter who worried about losing part of his hand once it became infected and the other guy who had to try and walk around with an open foot wound because the emergency room doctor would NOT sew up a gash he got from oysters. The doctor was too worried about sewing up bacteria from harbor waters.
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Originally posted by Marsh-pickertennis shoes
They won’t help you walk in it but at least they won’t come off when you get in it by accident
agreed 100%…
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