11-09-2005, 10:40 PM
My Fat Cat has good storage and large pockets. However I think I would be better served by another system. I like to take lots of stuff. By the time I put my thermos of hot coffee and the battery for my sonar in the left pocket there's not much room left. The right hand pocket is full of various size boxes of flies, jigs and plastics. With the boxes piled on top of each other often what I want will be at the bottom or stuck down at the far end of the pocket. This situation results in lost fishing time. I actually resurrected my fishing vest in an attempt to improve on the storage situation. I hate the vest. (Now I remember why it's been hanging in the basement since I got my tube!)
Well along comes my buddy whom I've been teaching to think outside the box. I have been flinging small jigs for a long time on my six weight flyrod. Experimenting with tubes and curlytails and micro shad and other plastics was a natural extension to my flyfishing methodology. (Please no comments from "purists") Bob got very enthusiastic about catching fiesty pond rainbows on crappie-sized tube jigs and now carries a whole arsenal of these with him using the plastic Plano boxes he used as a boat fisherman. He has a Fish Cat 4 which although not as high end as the Fat Cat has some features that make me rather envious. He manages to get about half a dozen Plano Boxes in a waterproof soft cooler which fits perfectly in the wet storage area behind his seat. This area is quite a bit smaller on his Fish Cat and this cooler sits tightly contained. Unless I find a bigger cooler that fits tightly my tube would have the cooler sloshing around back there. On his tube it is quite easy to reach back and put the whole soft container on the "Rubbermaid" stripping tray to facilitate tackle selection.
Have any of you with Fish Cats or Fat Cats tried this?
Another thing I like about the newer models (Like TubeDude's Fat Cat and the Fish Cat 4's is the D Rings. My model (2000) has Velcro for attaching a rod on either side. He didn't have that option with his D rings so he bought a Scotty flyrod holder. Last time I was out with him he had attached Velcro loops which you can get at Walmart, to the rings. Now he has the advantage of the D rings plus the capability to velcro two rods to his tube. We mostly flyfish so we don't bother with the multi rod setups. I actually broke my favourite 5 weight rod when I was transporting my tube with one of the PVC setups. I can put my Fat Cat right up between the roof racks on my vehicle for a nice tight fit for a short drive down the lane to one of the other ponds. Trying this with my Wood River Glider was what did the damage. Unfortunately it doesn't fit as tightly and a gust of wind toppled it breaking the tip of my rod. After that I decided to stick with the velcro.
Another thing the new Outcasts have going for them is that the zippers on the pockets pull from back to front. My Fat Cat has the zipper working from front to back which is not as convenient for zipping up the pocket and containing and controlling the power and transducer cables for my sonar.
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Well along comes my buddy whom I've been teaching to think outside the box. I have been flinging small jigs for a long time on my six weight flyrod. Experimenting with tubes and curlytails and micro shad and other plastics was a natural extension to my flyfishing methodology. (Please no comments from "purists") Bob got very enthusiastic about catching fiesty pond rainbows on crappie-sized tube jigs and now carries a whole arsenal of these with him using the plastic Plano boxes he used as a boat fisherman. He has a Fish Cat 4 which although not as high end as the Fat Cat has some features that make me rather envious. He manages to get about half a dozen Plano Boxes in a waterproof soft cooler which fits perfectly in the wet storage area behind his seat. This area is quite a bit smaller on his Fish Cat and this cooler sits tightly contained. Unless I find a bigger cooler that fits tightly my tube would have the cooler sloshing around back there. On his tube it is quite easy to reach back and put the whole soft container on the "Rubbermaid" stripping tray to facilitate tackle selection.
Have any of you with Fish Cats or Fat Cats tried this?
Another thing I like about the newer models (Like TubeDude's Fat Cat and the Fish Cat 4's is the D Rings. My model (2000) has Velcro for attaching a rod on either side. He didn't have that option with his D rings so he bought a Scotty flyrod holder. Last time I was out with him he had attached Velcro loops which you can get at Walmart, to the rings. Now he has the advantage of the D rings plus the capability to velcro two rods to his tube. We mostly flyfish so we don't bother with the multi rod setups. I actually broke my favourite 5 weight rod when I was transporting my tube with one of the PVC setups. I can put my Fat Cat right up between the roof racks on my vehicle for a nice tight fit for a short drive down the lane to one of the other ponds. Trying this with my Wood River Glider was what did the damage. Unfortunately it doesn't fit as tightly and a gust of wind toppled it breaking the tip of my rod. After that I decided to stick with the velcro.
Another thing the new Outcasts have going for them is that the zippers on the pockets pull from back to front. My Fat Cat has the zipper working from front to back which is not as convenient for zipping up the pocket and containing and controlling the power and transducer cables for my sonar.
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