Inside or Outside?

[bobframe]

Today my son and I had a nice time on the Chattooga.

I felt well equipped (with Simms G3 waders and a Simms Guide Jacket) to withstand steady rain and temps in the lower 40's all day..well, at least 5-6 hours in the rain. I also wore my Fishpond Shooting Star Chest pack/backpack over the Simms raincoat...and this is where my question centers.

While I stayed dry, the Fishpond pack was soaked by days end and was heavy as heck. Also, the insides of the compartments were wet. I also felt that it was preventing my Simms Goretex jacket from draining the rain off me and it felt wet and somewhat uncomfortable directly beneath the shoulder straps and where the pack rested against my chest and back. When I got the pack off at days end, these areas were very wet looking, unklike the rest of the jacket where the rain beaded up and ran off.

So, should I have tried to put the pack (you can substitute vest here if you like-same concept actually) on under the rain coat? Do you dress this way?

How do you dress for a day in the steady rain?

BTW, fishing was very good....:-)

[RoyC]

I wear my vest on the outside of my Simms rain jacket and I have never had water come through the jacket. BTW, the water beading up on the jacket is not the Gortex at work. That effect is a result of a coating that is sprayed on and comes off over time. Revivex, sold by Simms, renews the coating.

Roy

[sparsehackle]

The best solution I've found is to take the necessary stuff (fly boxes, tippet, etc.), that you'll need to get to often, out of the vest/chestpack and put it into the pockets of the rain jacket so you can get to it easily. Then, you can wear the now less bulky vest or chestpack underneath of the rain jacket, or dispense with it altogether.

[bobframe]

I actually had a bit of an epiphany...one of the reasons I bought the Fishpond pack was that the back and front can be used separately.

So, I could have ditched the (bulkier) back pack at the truck and probably could have gotten away with the chest pack inside the jacket. I think repositioning nippers, tippet, hemostats and a selection of flies to the rain coat would have made sense and minimized the number of intrusions to the unprotected area under the coat.

Gotta plan ahead when it's raining and change how I manage my gear.

BTW, I am aware that beading is a function of the DWR, not the Goretex. I recently retreated all of my Goretex raincoats with Revivex. But where the chest pack and back pack hung on the raincoat- there was no beading and in fact the garment material was soaked. Trying to minimize that in the future....hence the question. Thanks for the help guys!!!