Mother’s Day has come and gone. Father’s Day, too. And Christmas? That’s months off.
But who says you need an excuse to buy outdoor gear?
Some of it, after all, is intended for warm weather use. The time to get it is now, for the season at hand.
Here are some items that have come across my desk that are worth a look.
Thermacell
If there’s one thing about summer that’s annoying – and at times downright loathsome – it’s the bugs, right? Whether you’re on a picnic or a pack-in trip, they can be awful.
Enter two new products from Thermacell (www.thermacell.com).
Both the MR450 and the Backpacker use heat to dispense repellant, creating 15-by-15-foot bug-free zones. They run on butane.
There are differences, though.
The MR450 is the bigger of the two, about the size of a cordless phone, and self-contained. It houses a battery, butane canister and a mosquito repellent mat on the heating element. Each mat is good for four hours, each butane cartridge for 12.
You can lay it on a table or clip it on a belt.
The Backpacker operates the same way – with the repellent mat – but is smaller, weighing just 4 ounces.
What’s really cool? It screws onto the same butane canister that powers your backpacking stove, eliminating the need to carry another fuel source. Pretty handy, huh?
Both models are great for when you’re sitting on the lake shore or riverbank, fishing, and want to keep the bugs away on a summer night.
Somewhere else both of these might have potential, though? The early season deer stand.
Any hunter who’s ever been waiting and watching for a whitetail in late September or even the first days of October knows the mosquitoes can still be bad. Use of a Thermacell might ease that suffering and prevent an ill-timed flinch, all without giving away too much via scent.
Lucky 7
If you’re an absolute died in the wool, hard core carp fisherman – and yes, such people exist – you’ve probably got your own secret recipe for dough balls. And you wouldn’t think of using anything else.
It’s the same with those who relentlessly pursue catfish.
But if you’re a more casual chaser of such species, or at least not interested in making your own bait?
That’s where Lucky 7 baits come in.
The people behind Tri-State Bait (www.tristatebait.com and available at shop.everybodyadventures.com make Lucky 7 dough bait for carp and catfish. It comes in vanilla, strawberry and anise flavors now, with others in the works.
Company owner Joe Stabile of Somerset won’t say what’s in them, of course, except to note that they do contain a preservative. That’s important, he said.
“There are a ton of doughball recipes out there if you’re making some for the weekend,” Stabile said. “But after a while they’ll get moldy.”
His company’s bait – he makes it all winter long, to the tune of 1,000 or so pounds — stays fresh.
To use it, stick a ball of it on a size 2 to 6 hook. Trebles are often best.
When chasing carp in particular, use the bait without a bobber, but with a slip sinker. Carp are notoriously sensitive; if they feel too much weight on a line they’ll drop the bait.
To fool them, put a slip sinker on the line so that you can cast, but with a single split shot 12 or 15 inches up from the bait. Then, leave the bail on your reel open.
When the carp grabs the bait, he won’t feel anything unusual. Wait for him to starts peeling out line, set the hook.
Clakit
Fishing tackle boxes sit empty at only one time in their existence: when they’re on the store shelf.
Once an angler takes them home, every tray, every bin, every nook and cranny will, inevitably, get filled with gear. That’s just the nature of things.
So it is with cargo shorts and backpacks.
Head out for a hike and each and every pocket will, in short order, get stuffed with something, be it keys, pocket knives, GPS units, cell phones and the like.
Then?
Good luck holding those pants up and/or getting to the phone on your back if you spot something photo-worthy along the trail.
One solution we’ve tested is Clakit “StrapPacks.” They’re essentially pockets or pouches – some made specifically for cell phones, others for water bottles, still others for more generic collections of gear – that attach to the straps on a backpack.
Their plastic clips secure the pouches to the straps that run over your shoulders. That puts them on your chest, at armpit level, so that if you want to, say, check your phone, it’s right there.
The clips (at www.clakit.com) are heavy duty – tested up to 25 pounds and 120 miles per hour — and capable of fitting straps up to three inches wide.
Company founder Larry Schessel said he invented them out of necessity, after hiking through the California mountains, Since then, though, he said people have used them on all things with straps, from golf bags to seat belts.
Droplet
Baseball is a sport that’s ideally played when things are dry. Tennis, that’s a dry sport, too. So is golf.
But paddling? Ah, no.
Spend any amount of time in a canoe or kayak and you – and your gear – will get wet.
Dry bags are a common tool for keeping dry the things that have to stay dry, of course. But they can sometimes be bulky and hard to store.
That’s almost enough at times to convince you to leave them at home.
Enter the Matador Droplet XL (matadorup.com). It’s a fully waterproof dry bag capable of holding 20 liters of “stuff.” It stands 24 inches tall and 14 inches wide.
It works like any other dry bag: you fill it, roll down the top a few times and buckle it shut.
Yet – and this is what makes it different from anything else we’ve seen – it folds up to fit inside a teardrop-shaped silicone container the size of a baseball.
You could stick it in the pocket of a life jacket, tuck it in the hatch or crate of a kayak or – using the included aluminum carabiner – attach it to any rope, rigging or other hooking point on your boat, so that’s it’s with you all the time, largely out of sight but there when needed.
Now, is it the toughest piece of equipment we’ve ever come across? No. Were you going on a two-week back-country excursion, where help was days away, it would probably pay to take something more heavy duty.
So this won’t entirely replace the other dry bags in our collection.
But its light weight and small size give it a place for everyday use.
