Quick Tip: Use The River As Your Cooler

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder

Run out of space in your Yeti? Pack your Coleman so full of eatables that you can’t fit any river refreshments? No problem, sling a swing sack.

By “swing sack” I mean any perforated bag or mesh netting that can hold sodas or beer and can be tied off to the boat.

Granted the image above is a giant salmon net and not your every-day fishing accessory, but on a recent outing on a remote Alaska float fishing outing we had no ice and no cooler to keep our “river sodas” cold using the only mesh bag around: a giant salmon net. The river was the next best thing to an actual cooler full of ice. Typically it’s not freezer-cold, and you need not try this on a shallow rocky river float, but it’s better then your drinks baking in the direct sun.  The water you’re floating is almost certainly cooler than the air temperature in the middle of the summer.

So next time you’re running low on cooler space or forgot the ice simply swing that beer or soda behind your boat or “sink” them close to shore.