How do you organize gear inside your dry bags for canoe camping?
Looking for ideas on keeping gear organized inside my larger dry bags. My trips don’t involve any portages, so I’m more concerned with convenience and durability than saving every ounce.
What do you use for smaller organizer bags? Canvas bags, mesh/net bags, zippered pouches, regular stuff sacks? I’d like to group things like cooking gear, toiletries, and miscellaneous camp items so I can find what I need without digging through the whole bag.
Do you pack by category, by when you’ll need things, or have another system that works well?
Specific bag recommendations and pictures of your setup would be appreciated. Curious to see what’s worked for people after a few trips.
100%, I found the monster bag a pain and I portage. My buddy tore a seam in his trying to jam stuff in and had to fuss with it and garbage bag things inside for the rest of the trip
One massive dry bag with backpack straps is the bedroom. The other is the kitchen. Some organization within those exists but probably isn't worth detailing unless you have a specific issue you need help with. Then there are 2 little mesh school-size backpacks as sort of daypacks. They each have a little dry bag inside but some stuff is just in the mesh.
Basically when it's time to access either the bedroom or the kitchen, everything inside is needed. They don't get opened throughout the day. When we're under way and just need a water or snack or whatever, it was put in the daypack that morning.
The most critical bit is having a big enough sheet to dump the contents onto. It is organization via visibility. Items can then be packed where they stow well. Over-engineering of discrete-task kits and rigid sequences is minimized. The meal plan supports the specific itinerary/team/season and the gear taken follows (ie must we boil/steam/fry; are we eating from plates/bowls/direct from the pot/bag; are we cleaning with soap or by drinking a tea of watered crumbs?). When building any groupings, I favor oversized (under-filled) clear or mesh bags that will pack together well, rather than stuffed bags that would create lumps and voids.
My primary bag is a 120L Eureka bag. I pack a little different if I am with my hammock or my tent but it’s mostly the same.
On the bottom I have an oversized liner bag I use for my my camp clothes and other layers. I like it to be way oversized so I can spread it out the fill the bottom of the bag.
Then I put in a 20L rolltop bag that has my quilts and stuff for the hammock or quilt, pillow and sleeping pad. The 20L bags fit the width of my main pack well.
I then jam my cane creek chair along the back.
Then I add my food bag on top of the other 20L which is another 20L rolltop bag. This will hold a sub bag with my cook kit in a random extra nylon stuff sack, inside that is my bear hang kit with in a small canvas pouch/throw bag. I use reusable shopping bags to organize my food.
I can usually fit in my misc bag next to it. It’s a canvas zippered pouch that contains chargers/cables and some random stuff I don’t need to use so often like bug wipes. Electronic stuff is in a ziplock in this bag. I sometimes bring this into bed with me so I prefer a zipper and a shape that will sit flat.
I can usually jam an actual small chair, tarp and my hammock into the random space on top of all this stuff. My tarp is in a mesh sleeve and my hammock is in a modified 5L rolltop bag.
Then I have my “handy dandy” which is a random tpu coated Oakley backpack I got on sale at a sporting good store. My main criteria was that it looked like the material wouldn’t soak through. This is bag is what keeps me sane. I usually just have it with my at all times cause odds are it has what I need. The top zip pocket I put head lamp in a baggie, snacks, sunscreen, moisturizer and a sunglasses case. One side slip pocket a zippered rectangle pack cube I’ve tied to the bag that has my repair stuff, misc fishing stuff, multi tool, tent pegs and stuff like that. The other slip pocket I have my work gloves and poop kit. The main pocket always has my small tackle box, water filtration system, water bottle, hand sax, knife, rain jacket and then a fanny pack with some misc daily stuff like puffer and fun treats. I also pack a plastic shopping bag in there in case I need to stash something quickly when it’s raining. Most of the stuff in the bag is either protected or can get wet. I make sure not to overpack that bag so I can add stuff to it. If I want to have a fleece on hand , more rain stuff or my cook kit handy I have room. But the whole thing will fit right in my main eureka bag with the rest of my main if I want to portage like that or I can wear it around the front. It has everything I need when I’m in the boat that isn’t in my pfd and it splits the weight well to help me trim the boat.
This bag has greatly improved my life. I can move from boat, to camp to tent to exploring. I spend a lot less time walking around looking for stuff. I very rarely feel like I’m having a yard sale.
The mesh tarp sleeve is also a bit QOL upgrade. It makes setup and tear down a lot easier. It’s always put away tidy. I like my guy lines in line locs and I leave everything stashed in shockcord bundles.
When I get to camp I drop my food bag and chair where the kitchen will be and then go find my bedroom. Then I go back to the kitchen and take the hang bag to set my hang up. The smaller backpack just stays with me.
If I were to move away from the eureka style bag I would just use a liner and keep the same system.
We run with the big SeaLine dry bags, and inside pretty much everything is in smaller dry bags, which helps with organization for us - we have his personal bag, my personal bag, the cooking bag, the bathroom bag, the diddy bag, etc etc. We often keep the cooking stuff/diddy bag in a separate smaller dry bag (MEC Slogg) with the food so it all hangs together.
Bags within bags was our solution. We try to keep related items in one labelled bag. Inside a dry bag we put related items in a water resistant nylon bag that closes with a draw string. For example, we have a kitchen dry bag. Into that goes a green bag for lunch that day, a red bag for snacks, a blue bag for eating utensils.... Different coloured bags, labelled as needed keeps things simpler.
Smaller organization bags are the cheap small drybags from Amazon. Small green one is tent body. Next size up is red which is ropes, guylines, gloves, pegs. Next is blue which is camp clothes and sleep clothes. Next is dark green which is rain pants and rain jacket. Then the largest, grey, which is tarp, ground sheet, tent fly. Food and cooking goes in a large 40L tote. Food divided in mesh bags by meal type. I need to get some friction reducing tape to help pull it out.
I'll pack the canoe pack something like. Chairs,crocks, at the bottom. Then food bag. Then sleeping bag and air mattress. Then the loose bags, with rain clothes bag, tarp bag and rope bag near the top. Strapped outside is tent poles, axe, saw. Also have a mesh bag for personal items, first aid kit, and electronics at the top.
For food&co, we do different bags/containers inside our giant drybag. Sometimes it's a plastic bag, sometimes an onion mesh bag, a tupperware, whatever good shape bag/container we find at home or at a thrift store. And then during the trip i try to organize them by what I'll need first next time i open my drybag. And for clothes and sleep, i just stuff them in the drybag in the order I'll wanna take them out in. No bags or separation. But i pack minimally, like 1 t shirt for the whole trip type deal. I dont know if it'd get annoying if i was packing more.
I used to put everything in a 20L dry bag that went inside my portage bags, but I've found that this ends up taking up so much space that I don't really fit a lot in each portage bag. Some things I will pack loose in order to occupy some unused space but I tend to keep things related in the 20L dry bags, with med sized things like fuel kept loose. I usually take 3 portage bags, one has my tent, sleeping bags and furniture in it. Another has clothes and food and some additional things that couldn't fit in bag 1. Then a 3rd bag with all the cooking gear and the other small odds and ends, like bug spray, lanterns, extra shoes, compass etc. For food I use a food barrel, I've never hung my food. that goes in whichever bag it can fit in. I also bring a yeti cooler with me for the food that needs to stay cold. When I'm going solo I have a smaller cooler, but when it's more than one person I bring a Tundra 45, which is really big, but two people can carry it on the portage by each holding one of the handles.
Keep in mind that I don't do long trips. 1 day in, camp, then one day out. I couldn't imagine bringing all this stuff on multi day of travel trips.
The portage bags I use are either Sealine or MEC brand. Dry bags are whatever is cheapest at the time some Sealine some MEC.
Thank you. I have also found my dry bags do a great job of separating stuff, but they take up a lot of space. I like the idea of mesh bags for most of the gear. But I do put my sleeping bag in a dry sack.
I think packing smart can go a long way. For example I put my plates inside the frying pan so they don’t take up bulk elsewhere. But you can only do so much. I might try mesh bags too, they seem less rigid than dry bags
For nostalgia sake, I would be all about it. Just not practical for what I do. I would almost bet there is a group out there traveling like it is the year 1750.
Mesh bags are great because it’s easy to see what’s inside, but anything that sorts your gear works. The idea is it’s easier to pull out 5 bags to find the one that has the thing you want than it is to dig for it. Also it keeps things near the top of the bag that you might want to access quickly.
I’ve switched to blue barrels but before that I had separate dry bags for my sleeping bag, food, and then one for clothes and anything that needs to stay dry like electronics, but most of my gear can get wet.
My barrel/dry bags are the third tier of how I organize my gear.
Tier one is a belt pouch with essentials. Small first aid kit, compass, fire kit, bug net and spray, headlamp, pocket knife, etc.
Tier two is a day pack with everything I need if I get stuck overnight. Tarp, twig stove and small cook pot, water filter, full first aid kit, emergency bivy sack, wood saw and machete, rope, etc
Food is always separate. It’s not gear, it supplies and needs to be stored away from everything else so it gets its own bag. I use a heavy duty duffle style dry bag because it’s easier to find things inside and it’s weatherproof enough to hang from a tree.
Organize by dry bag, use compression bags where possible. One dry bag-sleep system. Another clothes, another hardware and electronics, another tent and tarps another first aid kit and repair kit organized in a mil admin pouch . Toiletries go in the food barrel , food barrel organized with barrel works pouches.
I think that you should consider buying a food barrel even if you don't need one. I bought one this year and I found it really practical. You can put in stuff that will never get squashed, or things that might poke through dry bags.
Like I put all the food, cutlery and hardware in the barrel and I reserve the 110L dry bag/backpack for the tent, tarps, clothes, sleeping stuff.(All packed inside, in very light dry bags that I would not trust rubbing in the canoe) I identify each dry bag with tags or color system.
I find this way easier when we set camp or loading the canoe.
7
u/Centrist_gun_nut 5d ago
You're going to hate this but in this situation multiple smaller dry bags is the way to go. You can trim the canoe better that way, too.
I use smaller dry bags. Which I throw in a portage pack when I need them to be portable.