Bags - Origin Story

This was living on my gallery page, but I'm realizing that my gallery pages shouldn't look like every recipe page online. So I'm putting it here so my poor bag gallery can speak for itself but I can still share how the bags came to be.

The original bags were a Costco special for my own personal use.

When I first moved to the Fairbanks area, I was living in my travel trailer out past Haystack. I’d work in town, and then come home to my gray jay friends, dogs, and 100 acres of woods to explore as I pleased. On the way home, I would often stop to fish. Often, like almost every day. I love fishing. My spots were typically the Chatanika River pull off, Olnes Pond, or a couple other secret spots that I went to specifically for pike. I was at one such spot, just relaxing and throwing a couple lines before heading home. I threw out a cast, and hooked onto what I at first assumed was a snag… Some kind of log, maybe a rock. Something solid. Until it started to move and I realized it wasn't a snag at all. After finally getting him to shore, he spit the hook at the last second and almost took off again. But I swooped in with my net, desperate after the battle, and got him. I probably look ridiculous. I yelled, I almost fell in the water. But there was no way I was letting him go. Then I struggled to finish him off with my very cheap Walmart fillet knife, which bent in the process. AND THEN, I went to put him in my handy dandy cooler, that turned out to be substantially too short to comfortably fit him. I had my dinner, but he still had the last laugh as his slime got my back seat when the cooler tipped mid journey home. I was victorious, but annoyed.

I measured him at home and he was 32 inches, which isn’t huge, but at that point was at least a foot longer than any other pike I had caught.

I vowed that I would get a better method of transport than the cooler (and a better knife). I wanted something collapsible, easy to carry, inconspicuous if I didn’t get anything, but big enough to fit a large pike just in case. Costco happened to have extra large insulated bags in stock for a more than reasonable 10$. I stocked up. My mom bought more. My first bag, I painted in honor of my pike.

That first round of bags were donated to a cancer benefit in 2022, but I still always have an insulated bag on hand.

Now I paint 3 sizes, for a range of utility. The small ones are great for a quick forage session or your lunch. The medium are about right for a few average trout or grayling, or a couple bags of groceries. And the large… The large can fit a couple big pike.