Review: Jack Wolfskin Backpack

I’m not a huge fan of laptop style backpacks because, well, I’m not in school anymore and my wife thinks I look like a boyscout when I where them. But this little backpack is different. Because this backpack helped me catch fish over the two weeks I was traveling.

I was in Deer Valley Utah last week for Outdoor Press Camp and the kind folks at Jack Wolfskin gave me this little pack as a welcome gift. I immediately transferred all my fly fishing stuff out of my giant duffel into the little compartments of the backpack. Here were my thoughts

Durability
The build quality on this bag is decent, it’s a small backpack made for a highschooler or college kid so in that sense, everything seemed fine for what it was. It did fine on the river, I fished the Provo in Utah as well as some small creeks in Minnesota, and it got wet a few times, and hiked through brush and I guess it was fine. I’m sure it could handle going back and forth to class.  Let’s give it a 4 here.

Aesthetics
Again, backpacks just aren’t really my thing but it seemed to work fine as a temporary fly fishing pack. Plus I never had to look at it since it was on my back. But a couple notes on design, the pattern of the bag reminded me of a camp pattern so in that sense, it kind of fit with what I was doing, and inside the front compartment, the organization of the smaller pockets was pretty satisfying visually. I was able to stuff two fly boxes, extra tippet, indicators, split shots, extra leader, hemostat/nippers into their own compartments, then in the middle pocket, reel, buff and bug spray. In that sense, the pockets were laid out nicely for what I needed them for.

Functionality
My use case for the bag was obviously different than what it was intended for so functionality wise, I guess it performed well. Again, it’s designed to be a school bag but bags are bags – you can put anything from groceries to diapers in here and this bag will hold it all. It’ll even hold both if you’re looking for a challenge.

Value
This is where I was stumped. It wasn’t immediately clear how much this bag cost or even, where I could buy it. I got it for free so for me it was a great value, but it’s hard to comment on the value since there wasn’t a price on the hangtag.