Gear: Remington Deer Season Fanny Pack

For the most part I consider myself to be a minimalist but it seems over the years I need to carry more and more stuff when I go off into the wilderness. Extra batteries for everything, extra memory cards for everything, keys, wallet, digital voice recorder, food and water commiserate with the duration of the trek, tripod(s), binoculars, tobacco, fire, compass, etc, etc. I found myself carrying a predator call the other day. Used it to. Works.

So back to all this gear I carry. It’s probably not even that much bulk wise compared to a bow hunter carrying his tree stand around, but if you forget one thing it has the potential to spoil the fruits of the trip. A dead battery or full memory card with no spare is not a good feeling when you are only half way through your planned trip.

To make a long story short, I’ll just come out and day it, I bought a fanny pack. The Remington Deer Season Fanny Pack. I was milling around at Bass Pro Shops the other day when I made the kayak shopping circle and I grabbed it as I walked by. I fastened it around my waist to see if it fit and put it with my stuff to buy.

Since I upgraded to the Nikon D90 I am carrying two cameras since I have not yet bought a full compliment of glass to accommadate the range of photography in which I engage during my outdoor excursions. All I have is a 70-300mm telephoto so I need the old Panasonic Lumix to shoot any macro or wide angle shots. I also have been using the Lumix for video, which is acceptable for basic web productions.

The nice thing about the fanny pack is that I could put the Lumix, camera bag and all, right into the main front pouch with some room to spare. I was wondering why I hadn’t went fanny pack a long time ago. There is a smaller pouch in front of the main pouch that is roomy enough to hold all kinds of battery chargers and batteries. It also has a front zippered pouch that will hold a few small things. On the belt there is a bottle holder, a buddy-loc connector, and another small pouch which I stuff with a lens rag and the beep-beep opener for my truck.

Some of you may have already guessed the problem. The damn thing is too heavy for the nylon belt and plastic fastener and the whole rig tends to sag after humping it a mile or so. On the first day I was ready to shitcan the whole thing but after some readjustment to the belt I was ready to give it another go. That worked out pretty good but still over the course of a few hours more than one adjustment to the belt was required. The last thing you want to be having to do when you are stalking something to photgraph is have to stop, set your camera down and fiddle around with the fanny pack sagging down around your knees. It’s a deal-killer.

A few days ago I wound up carrying the fanny pack out of the woods across my shoulder and I haven’t used it since except as a convenient way to carry a bunch of gear from the truck into the house in one trip. I gave it one more try this morning except I took the Lumix camera out of the main pack and hung it off the belt on the opposing side, balancing the load and freeing up quite a bit more storage. That worked well enough though the fanny pack did still tend to slip which was annoying but probably has more to do with the fact my gut is bigger than my ass.

I can’t say the Remington Deer Season Fanny Pack is a great piece of gear, but it was only $12.95. If you don’t need to pack a lot heavy gear and you have an ass to hold the belt up with, this bag is a deal.