anyone own a Yeti cooler?

Yes. It's awesome for fishing trips.

I would love to have that 65 for the boat! Might have to take an umbrella policy out on it so I could sleep.

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I don't think they really hold ice any longer than some much cheaper options to be honest

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Well most people think that because they don't know how to use them.

There is a precooling method. As long as you do this, it will indeed keep ice for days.

Really depends on your intended use. For me, I think they're ridiculously expensive and inefficient for my needs. I have a Coleman Extreme I paid $50 for that keeps my beer/drinks cold all day on the beach, and that's good enough for me. My brother in law brings a Yeti to the beach, and I hate lugging that heavy arse thing out on the beach. He does have more ice in his at the end of the day, but his beer isn't any colder.

I did a decent amount of research and I bought a Pelican. Better warranty and supposedly keeps ice longer.

They are heavy as hell though.

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I have an Orca.

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Thanks that's the one I couldn't think of which somebody mentioned six months ago...

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anyone own a Yeti cooler?

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I've got a few too ... which sounds unreasonable but I was given a Tundra 45 by my employees right before I retired because I said that's what I wanted ... it was my first.

Then my wife, having forgot I had that one in my truck most of the time, bought me a Tundra 35 for my truck ... which actually does work better for my needs so we took the 45 to the beach house.

But then I had a chance to buy a once-used Tundra 420 after our Elk Hunt last year. It cost the guy over $1,000.00 and then he sold it to me, literally on the way home, for $500.00 and I couldn't pass that up. It's too big for much of anything. I put it on the front of my hunting/camping equipment trailer after I had a special platform built for it where it could be good and locked-down ... because people are always stealking unsecured Yetis - just beware of that. The 420, and we actually put this to the test during a hunting and fishing trip down at Santee during the week of the Mizzou game ... but the 420 will hold 260 cans of beer with room remaining for plenty of ice. You just need a crane or a forklift to pick-it-up. But in the event of an emergency, I'm glad to have it because if the power goes out for any length of time I can use it to keep food cold ... and it does a really good job of that if you've got the ice. Ice lasts a long time in these things.

They are the best coolers made but they are expensive.

With all of that said they sell Grizzly Coolers at Sportsman's Warehouse, if you have one near you, that is every-bit as good as the Yeti but about 30% less expensive for most sizes as far as I can tell. We just bought one just for our boat a couple of weeks ago - it's a great value for the money without the name recognition, bottle opener and window sticker you pay for with a Yeti.

Make no mistake about it though. Yeti is the best, you'll simply pay a couple of hundred dollar more for one, on average and depending upon size, than you will for the Grizzly. Waaay more than you'll pay for a Coleman Extreme or even a Pelican for that matter.

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I don't think they really hold ice any longer than some much cheaper options to be honest. However, they are incredibly well-built, and will probably last longer that the aforementioned coolers.

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We do a lot of hunting, camping and fishing around here. Offshore deep sea fishing is where good coolers really pay-off.

Here are some tricks I've learned to keep things cool in my Yeti for five days or more, even in 100+ temps.

1 - Always use block ice. Never use bagged or chipped ice. If you can find block ice or do not have an ice house near you, then freeze your own using milk cartons or something. Block ice lasts a lot longer than any sort of bagged ice.

2 - Keep your beer in a cheap cooler, keep your meat and food in your good cooler ... if drinking a lot of beer over a four or five day period is important. In other words, transfer you beer from your good cooler to your cheap cooler a case at a time ... and limit how many times you open your good cooler with the block ice. (Keep a smaller cooler that you can open as often as you wish for your beer.)

3 - Buy a bigger cooler than you'll think you need so it'll hold more ice. More ice is always better. Blocked ice.

4 - If you are doing a long river trip or offshore run or a long hunt or even a road trip ... vacuum pack your meat and whatever else applies so-as to keep it dry. When we elk hunt we drive the big rig out west full of beer and food. When we come home, all the beer is gone, along with the food, but the cooler is full of elk meat. Last year we drove to Colorado and what impressed me about the Yeti 420 was that it still had ice in it five days after we left Maryland. We had drank and eaten everything we took with us so all we had to do was pack the elk in fresh ice for the ride home.

5 - Here's a trick I learned fishing offshore and down at Santee during the hot months when it is hotter on the boats than the ambient temperature indicates. Take a big thick white towel with you and keep it wet and draped over the top of the cooler, during the hottest part of the day especially and for obvious reasons. Evaporation and all that - but it is amazing what a difference it makes.