Dino, a hard-core bait caster who recently has been obsessed with ultralight whipping, shares his thoughts on his first waterproof sling pack.

Dino: “Damn”, you say to yourself as you retrieve your lure back up to your tip. You turn around and stare at the shoreline some half mile away…“Lemme change lures…maybe that’ll work..” you swing your tactical sling bag you bought off of eBay for $12.99 around and bruuhhhh…everything is soaked inside. Your wallet, phone, birth control pills, all soaked. Now you’re real mad. The fish weren’t biting and now you have a waterlogged bag. You make your way back to shore as fast as you can, and whoops! You step into a hole and go under. Seal the deal brah, you’re completely soaked.

These kind of things happen. It’s happened to me. I went through a pretty good amount of bags during my time fishing. Some were good, some were not so good. After doing some research, I finally did it. I bought a waterproof bag. I prefer sling packs. I can swing it around and get to my gear without having to take the pack off. Especially when standing in the water which I do a lot.

Introducing the Simms Dry Creek Z waterproof sling pack. Completely submersible so your can protect your birth control pills or whatever…the pack has one big main compartment with a lot of room to store your tackle boxes and such. It also has interior zip pockets for smaller items. It can be a little tricky to access the interior pockets with it loaded out, but it’s a nice feature to have nonetheless. A smaller pocket sits on the front side of the bag, but it is not waterproof. It is water resistant so me mindful of what you store in this pocket. I keep my tagging kit in it.

Build quality is superb on this little guy with multiple attachment points for tethers and such with reinforced stitching. The shoulder strap is comfortable with an integrated handle cut right into the strap itself. It also features a landing net sleeve! One tricky thing about this pack is the TRUZip zipper. It is awesome and 100 percent waterproof, but takes some effort to close and open. Lubing it with some armor all or 303 aerospace lube will make it easier to open and close. There is also 2 hook and loop sections on this pack for all you fly fisherman out there, or if you just wanna stick a moral patch on it (that’s what I did. I can’t fly fish to save my life).

All in all this is a great waterproof pack. Lemme warn you now though…it is not cheap. It’s comparable to other high end waterproof sling packs on the market today. Running In the ballpark of $230. But I figure hopefully this will be the buy once, cry once pack for me.

Be safe, have fun, practice catch and release, and enjoy the outdoors. ALOHA!

~ Dino