Make a cooler bag for Hobie Outback rear bungee well

I recently caught several long tail tuna that did not fit in my cooler box. That got me thinking about a more effective way to keep larger fish cold, reduce wind resistance and save space. A cooler back would achieve all these things but unfortunately I could not find and cooler bags on the market that fit the hobie outback rear well.


We had some bad weather over the last long weekend so I took to building my own cooler bag.

My fiance had the great idea to use cooler bags available from Woolworths / Coles, they are lightweight and easy to work with using a standard sewing machine. I bought 4 and ended up using 2 1/2. Here is a blow by blow for those interested in doing the same.

I picked apart the bag into 2 sections, being careful to only pick where the 2 pieces join and not the seam (i did this a few times). I also removed the handles and zippers. I kept the handles and zippers for later.

You get 2 of these for each cooler bag

I did this for 3 bags then placed them together in the back of the ob to get the right shape. I then pinned them together.

2 1/2 bags, picked apart and laid out for pinning.

First time sewing for me and once you get the hang of it, it's not that hard but several times the misses had to step in to fix a few stuff ups. It was easier to sew it up into 2 sections first.

2 sections sewed up.

Then sew these together and sew in the bottom section.

All section sewed in.

Now the hardest part was then joining the ends together, this was very time consuming and in the end the sewing machine just could not reach the last section so I had to do it buy hand. I decided to put the zips at each end, this would allow me to clean it easily and also be able to fit long fish in with head and tail hanging out. You will notice overlaps that I plan to use for pockets, I have created one for the ruler at the moment and I may put a zipper on the other. I used a part of the handle to create a loop for the rear well bungee.

Finished project.

Fitted in the kayak.

Shot of it in the outback.

At full length for offshore work.

Full length

End folded in for estuary use and conserve the ice.

End folded in.

I am very happy with how this came together and the placement of the bungee loop holds the top part of the zipper open to make it easy to put fish in. I am not sure how long this material will last but after doing this DIY i realize that any more of a complicated design or harder materials would have proven much harder sewing. I will keep my big cooler box in the car and load the fish straight from one to the other and try not to carry fish in it.

Dan