The SimpliFLY Chest Pack
I was skeptical about The SimpliFLY Chest Pack when first examining it. I don’t carry much gear when I’m wading a river. Some folks I fish with call me a pragmatic minimalist—if it can’t fit in two shirt pockets, then I don’t need it.
Here’s the basics on the SimpliFLY Chest Pack. The basic pack consists of a padded harness that clips onto a two-part chest mount fly fishing pack. Once I started playing around with the pack, it clearly was thoughtfully designed. The bottom half can be configured in two ways. One choice is best for Euro-nymphing as it has seven fly compartments with a five-compartment sinker wheel. For the second choice, simply detach the lower half and re-attach a padded fly box. The upper half has three storage compartments and a tippet compartment with plastic tippet retention notches. Magnets keep the two halves closed. When the pack is closed, there are three zingers at the ready plus more magnets to hold your forceps. The fly fishing pack is molded high-density ABS and the harness sports a D-ring for hanging your net.
The enhanced version for those who want to carry more gear includes a SimpliFLY backpack and three of the padded fly boxes. The backpack is big enough to haul those three boxes and it has two zippered compartments.
No longer a skeptic, I like this chest pack for warm weather wade fishing. It’s easy to get in and out of, even when the backpack is loaded. The chest pack rides comfortably and doesn’t interfere with casting or playing a fish. The compartments might be a touch difficult to open in cold weather if the user’s fingers are wet and cold.
The basic version retails for $97.99. The enhanced one sells for $159.99