On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:37:59 -0800 (PST), rb608
wrote:

The subject of vest weight has come up before and again just recently,
and I thought I'd offer up my Boy Scout "Be Prepared" fishing vest for
discussion. On the few occasions I hit the rivers, I'm planning to
make a day of it. I'm usually an inconvenient distance from my car,
and anything I want for 8 hours, I need to take with me.

I'm all for a light vest, and I really don't take too much extra
fishing gear. Then again, what do a few leaders or spools of tippet
weigh anyway. No, fishing supplies add virtually nothing to my vest,
yet the last time I was up on the Salmon River, I think my vest must
have weighed ten pounds. Why? It's the other stuff.

It's no fun getting hungry when the catching is good, so I stuff a few
granola bars in the back pocket. Getting dehydrated is worse, so a
couple bottles of water go in there too. Now the vest is a load.
Stuff a stuffable rain jacket back there too, and now it's bulky *and*
heavy. Then there's the flask of single malt (optional, I suppose,
for some), a few good cigars, and a small supply of TP, and a small
camera. In the end, my vest ends up more a backpack than a fishing
aid.

I don't really have a question, except, does everyone else take all
this **** when they go out for a day? Or, do you plan to be closer to
your vehicle and leave more stuff behind?

Joe F.

As I similarly tend to prepare for a day on the river with the goal of not
needing to return to the vehicle what brung me - except to leave...aside from
the single malt, the second bottle of water, the camera, and the cigars, I
suspect the contents of my vest are very similar to yours :-)...and after I
add an extra reel and a few spools to those two back pockets, probably end up
with a similar weight problem :-(

My shorty vest of the last 15 years has something like 50 pockets. I'm not
sure I've yet found them all, but none of the ones I've found are ever empty
on the stream - the classic "problem growing to the bounds of its domain"
syndrome ;-)

Typical vest inventory for salmonid: four of the large black Wheatley boxes
(dries, streamers, mayfly/stonefly nymphs & wets, and caddis/dragon/damsel
"nymphs"), 2 of the small silver Wheatleys for microminutiae drys and wets, a
wool-lined streamer wallet, 6 spools of Orvis SuperStrong (2x through 8x), 5
spools of Mirage (2x to 6x), a few extra leaders, hemostat & nippers on
separate zingers, bottle of fly-shake, bottle of flotant, small collection of
lead-free split-shot, couple of line cleaner pads, a few drift indicators, a
stream thermometer, small gooseneck flashlight, a slip-on bug seine bag,
breathable shorty hooded rain jacket tucked in the big back pocket with a
ziplock baggie of TP, a back-up flyreel w/mounted spool, a spare spool for the
back-up reel, and a spare spool for the primary reel, pair of glasses in their
case, a TU pin and a few plastic license holders festooning the front, and
often a landing net french-clipped to the back...

I think I've covered everything. Woof.

I don't know how much that vest ends up weighing at the start of a day but I
can say by the end of that day it weighs a *lot* more.
And it feels so good taking it off!
And it has always been thus....

/daytripper (it's a love/hate thing ;-)