If you wear hip boots/waders ontop of stocking foot waders, you wont have to worry about durability against thorns and other wear-n-tear on the waterproofness of the stocking foot waders.
You will have to poke a hole somewhere just above the calf area of the hip boots tho, since those will eventually leak somewhere. That way if you are bothered by them filling up with water while walking, you can just raise your leg up and have them drain.
Ive been doing this for a couple months and my stockingfoot waders havent been touched by any of the thousand thorns ive walked through
the cheap PVC hip boots have shielded them.
