Video Transcript
Introduction (00:00)
This is the Eagle Industries YOTE bag. Now they market this as a hydration carrier, not a sustainment pack, not a three-day assault bag, nothing quite like that. There's other bags that are better for that application. But what this bag does give you is a lot of space for important equipment that you may need, a place to install a 100 ounce or similar size hydration bladder. And one of the things that I really like about this particular pack is the ability to carry a helmet and night vision via the beavertail on the exterior of the pack itself. So the way that I—and the way that we've been using this here at T.REX ARMS—is to supplement the gear on our plate carrier or on our chest rig that won't fit anywhere on the plate carrier or chest rig very effectively, but can fit on our back in a much smaller bag. This is not a low-vis concealment bag. This is not a gray man bag. This is very obviously a tactical bag with MOLLE-style attachment points. You can attach this to the back of a plate carrier via the MOLLE here in the back. And the colorways for these bags are also not very gray man, except for maybe this gray one.
Let's go ahead and look at some of the features inside. These are the three colorways that we are currently offering. We have all black, we have our exclusive—these are bags that Eagle's making for us in our two-tone colorway. And we also have that for the Ranger Green right here. The bag is filled with adjustment points. So on the exterior, you can see here that the beavertail can be adjusted with six different straps, two on the bottom, two on the sides, and two on the top. So you can fit a helmet and night vision, clothing, waterproof jacket, really, whatever you want back here. And you can scale the bag accordingly, which is pretty awesome. These also serve as compression straps to help just compress the entire load in the bag itself, even if you're not using the beavertail.
Pouches and Shoulder Straps (01:52)
On the inside…(go ahead and undo these)…you have a 468 cubic inch compartment. The hydration bladder is going to go on the inside here in this mesh pocket. There's also a plastic stiffener that is included. I guess you could remove that if you really want to, but why you would want to do that, I'm not sure. But that is included here in the center in a zip pocket. Hydration goes right here. You can throw anything else that you need to inside. What I like about this bag is it does not have a ton of compartments and pouches on the inside that makes getting certain things out of the bag more difficult. I prefer having those pouches on the exterior or somewhere completely different and not clogging up the interior of the backpack. As you can see, there are no other pouches on the inside of this bag. It's just one large compartment that you can put your DAKA pouches and whatever else in there, ammunition, that you need to have.
On the sides there are two cylindrical-sized pouches. These fit water bottles and rifle magazines very well. You can fit two to three rifle magazines here on the side. There's another one that matches the same dimensions on this side right here. And then these shoulder pads—this is one of my favorite things about them—are fully adjustable and removable. So if you want to remove these off of the bag and run the MOLLE on the inside to attach it directly to a plate carrier, you can do so. It does have a cross strap, which is really important if you're wearing this on top of a plate carrier and/or chest rig to keep the bag from slipping off of your shoulders while you're shooting and, you know, while you're doing all your stuff. This can also be adjusted along the strap itself for height, you know, if you don't want it touching your rifle magazines, you want a little bit higher up to, so it's not getting in the way of a reload or something. You can adjust from the bottom to adjust where the shoulder pad is going to sit on your body or on your plate carrier. You can adjust from the top here. And then you can also adjust the cross strap itself.
Hydration Bladder Installation (03:49)
Normally the Eagle hydration carrier includes a 100-ounce bladder with every bag. But what we wanted to do is offer the bag all by itself because some people don't like worrying about hydration bladders, so you can buy the bag and use that. And if you really want to, you can also pick this up and add it later on or buy it at the same time. But they are separate to save you guys a little bit of money if you're not looking for this capability right here. But I want to show you guys how to install it. So again, mesh pocket… I'm gonna insert this all the way in. And there is a small hook that is positioned here at the top of the bag, which is used to hook into the hydration bladder itself. This is to help prevent the bag from slipping down and sagging as you consume all the liquids inside. So we're going to clip that to the top right here. There we go. And then there's a hydration slot for the tube. Tube runs through. And then attach to the harness. If you're using the straps on the bag itself, they have shock cord conveniently already placed. So if you want to set this up, to help keep it in place, you can do so. And then you can drink. So that's the bag with the hydration installed.
Beavertail (05:32)
Here's an example of the beavertail in use with an Ops-Core helmet. So as you can see, I've adjusted some of the straps here in order to fit the entire helmet. All I have to do to access the helmet is pop the two, sometimes the two sides, but the two front ones. Helmet comes out. I have the night vision inside the PVS-14 and TYR Tactical container. And I'm good to go. I can then re-buckle this, re-tighten it down, throw it back on, and I'm set.
On the outside of the pack is this medium-sized compartment that can fit a night vision insert for binocular night vision or whatever else you want to put inside. And the patch panel here on the exterior is the same size as a large American flag patch or other similar ID panel. So flag can be fixed like so. And then there is a small skinny piece here for name tapes and IR and whatever kinds of patches you might need for target identification that you can put right there at the top.
Running the YOTE with the AC1 (06:32)
My favorite way to use one of these is wearing it on top of whatever other kit that I'm wearing. So not dedicating the bag to a particular plate carrier by MOLLE-ing it in, or having some sort of super modular zip-on system. So I have an AC1 on right now, slick back, nothing on there. It makes this very easy. And then you just put the pack on, like you normally would. Shoulder straps will run across the top. You will want to size this accordingly to fit on top of your hard plates and the carrier itself. It's a little tight, but now my pack is good to go. I can still move around, do everything, get to my magazines. If I need to drop this quickly, for whatever reason, I can do that. And now I'm not restricted to having a pack dedicated to my plate carrier, which gets in the way in vehicles or just slows you down. So that's how we're using these.
Tip: Check out eBay (07:26)
If you are needing a Multicam YOTE bag, or you want to save a little bit of money, here's a little tip. If you go to eBay and look for these bags, you will find old military-issue ones for around $150 to $200. So if you want one in SBC khaki, or Multicam, head over to eBay, you can usually pick one up for pretty cheap. They may come with the hydration bladder inside or not. I've bought a few that did and some that didn't. And if you have any other questions regarding these backpacks and what they can fit, how you can use them, or other colorways—whatever questions you have—go ahead and email us at [email protected].