We’ve all seen them, many of us have used them, and most of us have a love-hate relationship with cooler bags. You don’t always have enough space on deck or in inboard compartments to ice down all your fish during a successful spearfishing trip, so you opt to bring a cooler bag as a backup storage compartment that takes up less space until you actually need it.
Personally, my crew has used them traditionally to separate barracuda from the rest of our catch during tourneys so they didn’t share their telltale stench with the whole of our catch or the built-in cooler compartments.
Generally speaking, cooler bags have been a necessary evil, but Evolve’s new Kill Bag Extreme Soft Cooler series addresses a lot of common issues. Like Evolve’s hard cooler series, these are designed to actually hold ice for days, not just hours. Add to that some cool designs and shapes, and they may have a winner. They have a kayak model that is actually shaped like your kayak, making it easy to store your catch right from the water without awkwardly changing the wind profile of your kayak.
A backpack series is also available that can easily be attached to various elements of your boat like a rocket launcher or the braces on a t-top and can also support two spearguns, your wetsuit, mask, and snorkel all while keeping your catch cool for three days in the large size and two days for the smaller model. They can even create custom coolers to your specific needs. As an example, they made one that turned the bed of a pickup truck into an entire cooler.
All kill bags are heat-sealed on the bottom and sides to prevent leaking on you, your car, or your boat. Larger models even have drain valves for easy release of water and to facilitate cleaning and rinsing. While we haven’t put one to the test personally yet, they appear pretty sturdy and definitely have a great look.
The bags range in size and cost, starting at around US$71 (~57 Euros) for the smaller bags all the way to $686 (~555 Euros) for the largest one (which is 96 inches/244 cm by 60 inches/152 cm). They can also be customized to any size and shape, since they’re made in the USA. Additionally, they come with a five-year limited warranty.
For more info about the various sizes of Evolve’s Kill Bags (as well as their line of motorized stand-up paddle boards), check out the company’s website at evolvediving.com.
