(The Shokuryoshi Experiment)
It's been said that you can’t catch a fish if your fly isn’t in the water. The more time we spend fiddling around with gear diminishes the amount of time we spend fishing.
Over the winter of 2023, along with all the thinking of how to become more efficient, it crossed my mind that changing my pack system could lend to more time with my flies in the water. So with that idea in mind, the first big set of changes I made were to my pack.
I started by going over my normal fishing routine in my head, and in doing so realized a few big time-wasters pretty quickly. In dissecting them a bit more, they all came down to how I wore my pack. I had always worn my hip pack around my lower back. When I started to think about it, I realized that what often happened on the creek was my habit of reaching around the back, rummaging around my pack feeling for my fly box or line spool, not finding it and spinning it around to look for myself, making the change, putting everything back, zipping it up, and spinning it around to my back again - and often forgetting something and repeating several steps immediately after.
This would have to change, and luckily the solution was simple - wear the pack around the front. In doing so, I could cut out the majority of the inefficient movements I often repeated while wearing it around my back.
With this new idea, I started to realize how much utility a pack can really offer. I started rethinking the organization of my pack, then I started to wonder how much versatility I could get from the pack itself. With the goal of creating a more versatile pack system in mind, and some ideas on how to achieve it, I decided to dismantle the pack and reevaluate my organization to better piece together some of those ideas.
I took some time to evaluate the gear I carry, and to think on what conditions I may face - as well as how I generally go about fishing in those conditions. With a winter that brought plenty of snow, I knew I would have to consider the strong possibility of having to carry a jacket. For longer outings, I wanted to figure out a way to accommodate for extra snacks, and my water filter. All of these wants and needs added a new challenge to the experiment. My hip pack wouldn’t be able to hold all that gear. Luckily I had received a sling pack as a gift not too long before all this. My idea then formed into making a system that would allow me to adjust to the situation.
This little project was rapidly growing, and becoming more involved. It goes to show how little I had thought out the organization of my pack, and how complacent I had gotten with the system I had in place. These thoughts and ideas were becoming inspiring, and perpetuated a desire to build a better system. I then started to wonder how I could take what packs I had available and build a more modular, and cohesive system that offered utility, organization, and versatility.
I started playing around with some ideas, scrapping some, but keeping others as I experimented with different setups. I didn’t get to test some of these ideas until spring came around, and even then, there was a bit of refinement that needed to be done.
Early on I had the intention of choosing the pack that best fit my anticipated needs for the outing. I would take the tools and gear I intended to use, and reconfigure it on whichever pack I was going to use for the day. This led to one idea that would stick, and that was to make use of zipper pouches to organize and hold gear. This would allow me to quickly and easily transfer gear from one pack to another. The idea worked well, and is something I still use today. Over the season it was refined a bit, and I’m sure as I continue through this summer, it will go through more small changes.
Another concept that I experimented with was how I wanted my tools to be set up on each pack. I liked the way they were on my hip pack, so I took some webbing and some hooks that fit the existing webbing on both of my packs, and created a little strip to hold my tools and tippet. The idea was to be able to transfer this strip between packs easily, while keeping the components organized in the way I like them. I tried this for some time, but ultimately moved away from it as I found it to be unnecessary after rethinking the system a bit.
The amount of changes and small tweaks to the system are numerous, and still continue to this day. With so many ideas early on, it was inevitable that some wouldn’t serve as great of a purpose as I had hoped. In some cases, a concept would lead to a better idea in the end. At this point in time, I feel confident in the way I have my system set up. Little refinements happen here and there, and sometimes I find new gear to incorporate into it.
I encourage anyone reading this to take a look at their fishing pack and look for small improvements they could make that would allow themselves more time fishing, and less time messing with gear while on the water. Even small changes or adjustments can make a big difference in the long run!