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What's up everybody, it's Simon from LakeUp. We're taking a break from road
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tripping just for today to talk critter proofing a cooler. It doesn't matter what
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you're doing on the lake. If you're day tripping you're taking a cooler. If you're on the boat you're taking a cooler. If you are taking a week-long vacation
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you've rented a cabin or something like that, you're camping on the lake, then
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you'll want to stick around to the end because I have a lockdown method that'll
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work anywhere for critter proofing, especially against raccoons. Method number one, stick the cooler in your car. Pretty easy. Now you don't want to do
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that in bear country, but that works for any other critter. Okay, you just throw it
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in the car overnight. Don't leave it outside. Don't leave it outside the camper. Don't leave it outside on the porch or whatever. Just stick it in the
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car. Now I want to let you know, bear wise, that a lot of folks don't know this
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but bears are on the comeback in Texas and Oklahoma. So like southern Oklahoma
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southeastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast Texas, black bears are starting to come back. So there will be a time, there will be a time when they get used
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to being around people and figure out the food and all that kind of stuff
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where you'll have to worry about that. You'll have to, you know, put your food in bags or whatever and like, you know, lift them up into a tree. But we're not
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really there yet, but just know that's coming. Number two, put it inside of a
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domicile. So if you're staying in a cabin, pull it inside the cabin. Again, super
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easy, but you leave your stuff outside, it's almost certainly gonna get ravaged
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Raccoons have these little, you know, sneaky little hands. They can open latches
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They can open, you know, Yeti coolers and all kinds of stuff. So just pull it inside
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If you're tent camping, I like to keep like a little extra tent just for
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storage and stuff. That's gonna keep most critters away. Number three, ratchet tie
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downs. This is what I'm talking about. So we were camping in Broken Bow Lake in
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southeastern Oklahoma and we got completely wrecked by raccoons. I mean, they ate everything. If you've ever been to Broken Bow Lake, there's not a lot of
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groceries going on. So that was like an hour round trip to resupply it. I was
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feeling mad. Now, I'll take responsibility because I was in charge of making sure
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all our food's secure. We left it in our coolers outside the camper and I mean
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they ate, there must have been a troop of raccoons. I don't know what you call a
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group of, you know, like just, there must have been like a battalion. I don't know
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There was a lot. There had to have been a lot. They ate everything. So, gotta be
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resourceful. Look around. What do we have to lock these things down
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Ratchet tie downs. Yeah, now it's crew-proof. They cannot touch this stuff. So now I've
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got at least one cooler that is doing its job of cooling and then I have
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another cooler that we use as a dry box. And that's where we're gonna put like
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all our bread and fruit and stuff like that and lock them both down. In fact
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sometimes I'll just put them together and just strap them all up together
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You're good to go. So there you go. Next time you're out on the lake, make sure
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that you're crew-proof. Simple. Easy. Have fun
