Soft-sided breakthroughs provide cool upgrade to angling

I won't reveal the airport, nor will I share the names of the security people we encountered when returning home from a dove-hunting excursion.

The "we" in this column is myself and the late Daily Herald photo chief, Mike Seeling.

We each had what had been described as the best thermal bag on the market, and each bag was packed with dove breasts, crappie filets and about 5 pounds of bagged ice.

The routine should have been a snap once we got back on U.S. soil. But nothing went as planned.

Security people at the airport struggled with the zipper on the cooler bag and came close to destroying it after a five-minute give-and-take.

After a lengthy explanation of what we planned to do with the massive amount of dove breasts, we were allowed to carry the bags on the plane.

But before that happened, we waited over two hours to board. And by then I noticed the bottom of my thermal bag was beginning to show signs of extreme moisture.

The "sweating" was the result of most of the ice melting and finding its way to a leaky seam. Seeling had the same difficulty, only the leakage was even more serious.

Just over a year later, I found myself in a similar situation, only this time I was on a walleye and panfish road trip.

Maybe 99 percent of the time, I release everything I catch. The exceptions are Great Lakes salmon and big-water trout.

In this case, I was reacting to pressure from friends who wanted some fish for their dinner table. I brought home a limit of walleyes, jumbo perch, hefty bluegills and a couple eating-size northern pike.

And this time I tried something new and completely different.

My friend Howard had purchased a Yeti Hopper - a semi-soft thermal bag - and offered it to me for the drive to and from my fishing destination.

The Hopper was a bit smaller than my older cooler bag, but the insides appeared to be constructed out of materials impervious to all elements.

I came back from that trip (four days in the north country) with a bagful of ice still holding its own.

So I did some research on the state-of-the-art cooler bags and boxes.

RTIC is one competitor of the Yeti brand, making soft bags as well as the hard, larger boxes that can be placed in a boat or strapped to an ATV.

Then there's the Pelican brand, a name that made its mark in shielding cameras with waterproof and shockproof cases. This company also makes ultra-rugged thermal coolers.

Based on what I experienced, on the water and in my boat, as well a day in the woods trekking to a turkey blind, the Yeti Hopper, as well as the larger model 65 Yeti, kept frozen foods frozen until I was ready to defrost and cook. The Hopper held true to the hype in that beverages stayed cold, sandwiches and cheeses remained dry and bags of ice kept their solid form for over a week.

The most frequent question asked of me when people see the 65 in my boat or take a gander at the Hopper is this: Are there other brands offered for less money?

The answer is yes, but I'm not denigrating the value of the other brand names. I simply have more experience with the Yeti 65 and the Hopper.

And I hold to the tenet that one tends to get what one pays for.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.