Fishing backpacks?

[chris kowaleski]

I've been going fishing several times a week these last few months, and i figure i should start carrying some stuff i don't already carry( sunscreen, natural bugspray, water, flashlight) etc. I've been looking online for a backpack that has a cooler section in it so i can keep my night crawlers alive as it's starting to get pretty warm out. Any of you guys have any recommendations?

[Leo Nguyen]

Ah, the ninja trekker mode. Not sure about the ninja masters, but here are my backpack load, based on species. Let's focus on trouts and panfish, starting at 4am to 3pm:

 

1. Basic personal essentials: very light on sleeve (2nd internal layer if need for warm) sunscreen, wide brim hat, mosquito/bug head net cover (prefer over bug sprays), very good 3 tones LED head lamp, 1 liter of slightly diluted gatorade (don't drink too much salt), and very light pants to cover your legs from getting chewed up by bugs. Make sure to bring enough food to sustain you in accordance to your need of food.

 

2. All the essential non-live bait lures, spinners, etc..Don't over pack. Nothing more than 5lbs worth of lures. The heavier the bag pack, the more you will suffer after a nice 4 hours of trekking. If you're keeping your catches, how about a float mesh basket. Keep the fish alive or cool until you haul them home. Make sure to also to have anchoring rope to prevent the basket from floating away. A nice stringer is good too.

 

3. Select 2 of your best rods for attacks. 3 rods is pushing it. Rods must be contained in a manner  you can handle easily without breaking them during the trekking through the minefield of branches. If you're lucky and fish in open shorelines, pack 4 rods. Make sure to have 2 compact rod holders.

 

4. If you are carrying live bait, especially in a warm environment, best to bring a collapsible cooler. For crickets, they're fine with just the lid opened, and a few frozen pieces of apples. If it's earthworms, 2 inch of loosen soaked newspaper (completely squeezed of water) for every 50 larger nightcrawlers. If it's mealworms, 1 inch of rolled oat to prevent moisture from wetting their bed. A few nice chilled piece of potato will do the trick. The 1 liter of half frozen gatorade can be used to keep the live bait cool all day by creating a separate partition for the live baits and drink/snack.

 

Okay guys, I'm done..start bombing with more ideas!

[chris kowaleski]

thanks leo! what kind of backpack do you use? i've found this one on the net http://images.cabelas.com/is/image/cabelas/s7_125065_999_01?rgn=0,0... , but i'm not sure if i'm being too picky by wanting a camoflage/ less obnoxious colored backpack instead. What bags do you guys run?

[Leo Nguyen]

Wow..that's plenty good! Perfect layouts for various holding scheme for your lures, as well as drinks. I use my old cross country snowboarding bag, where I can access both the top, back, and front sides of the bag to access all my gears internally. I also mount my rods vertically for the long treks, where I don't like to hold onto my rods for the nice long walk. I also go through areas that I like to have my 20" machete and 6.5" hunter knife with me just in case. Total bag's weight with gears, including food/drink is no more than 20lbs. I used to hike 16hrs with a 45lbs bag loaded with survival gears, so, I'm used to it. 4 kids that love to clinch to me for the past 11 years also help.

[Allen Morgan]

I just bought a kid's school backpack.  The main compartment is big enough to hold a 17" laptop.  I can comfortably keep two large plano boxes in there.  Second compartment holds my floats.  I have a wide variety of floats, including some for catfish, so they're BIG.  Third compartment holds leader material and soft plastics (mostly grubs).  One of the side pockets holds two smaller boxes with hooks.  Another side pocket has a miniature plano box with my go-to panfish-sized lures.  I have a few other small pockets on the bag that hold oddball items; one of those has balloons for balloon-rigging.

For a cooler, I bought a cheap, $5 soft-sided cooler from Wally World, that uses frozen gel packs to stay cold.  That can usually hold my bait for awhile.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

There are a couple of store-bought backpacks that come to mind. Bass Pro Shops has one that is about $30. Okuma makes one that retails for around $40-$45. Either of the Cabelas packs look like they could work, for $50-$70, too. There are actually quite a few of these,  but the prices go stratospheric pretty quick after these three. They are all designed to hold 6-10 Plano 3500 series plastic storage boxes and you want a lower section that can accommodate a small cooler bag, like a lunch tote. I know the Okuma and BassPro models will, and the the Cabela's model you've shown seems like it would.

This is what I use... I place a plasti-pak re-freezable ice pack in the bottom of an insulated lunch bag. Then I place a click-lok plastic container on TOP of the ice pak, which I load up with worms and bedding. I zip it up and carry it shoulder bag style. I could dispense with the inner plastic container, I suppose, but I like things nice and neat!

If it were me, I'd snag the BPS version. And as long as you like it in blue, you're good to go.

[chris kowaleski]

Thanks for the info fellas! David, i checked out the bags you mentioned, but i think i'm gonna go with that Cabelas bag with the cooler. I was originally trying to find a backpack type cooler, but since that has a cooler and room for tackle, might as well get one bag i can carry on my back instead of several different bags! I'm excited to try it out!

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

It is the way to go ! I only gave the Cabelas bag a perfunctory glance; I didn't notice it had a cooler built in. And for the money, which is reasonable, I think it should do the trick.