Review: Patagonia Swiftcurrent Wading Jacket

If you only fish dry flies upstream for trout, you’ll likely head home when the thermometer plunges and the rain begins. But if you are swinging for steelhead on the Olympic Peninsula, hunting migratory 10-pound+ browns on the Great Lakes, or streamer fishing the upper Madison in October, you know that the type 2 fun is just beginning.

Patagonia’s full-feature Swiftcurrent Wading Jacket will keep you on the water all day with its 4-layer, waterproof/breathable H2No shell. The shell is made without perfluorinated chemicals—a common ingredient in many durable water repellent (DWR) treatments—and is made from 100% recycled nylon. It has also passed Patagonia’s benchmark “performance standard,” which includes lab tests for breathability, waterproofness, surface repellency, and long-term durability. The final sniff test is months of field testing by dozens of global ambassadors who use and abuse the jacket in wide variety of ecosystems around the world.

The jacket has an adjustable, vented hood and a high inner collar to slam the door on wind combined with rain. It’s easy to snug up over a baseball cap or over an insulated layered hood.

It has two low-profile, front fly box pockets protected by water-resistant zippers, and zippered handwarmer pockets that are high on the rib cage so you can wade deep without filling them. The handwarmer zippers are protected by a comfortable flap, so you don’t scrape the backs of your cold hands on zipper teeth when you slide them in.

The watertight cuffs adjust tightly with Velcro straps that are recessed under a cuff like a shingle, both to keep you dry and to avoid line snags. It’s available in two colors,  tidepool blue and basin green, and in six sizes XS to XL.

$399 | patagonia.com