Top Pack Rafts for Backcountry Fly Fishing: NRS, Kokopelli, & Alpacka

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NRS Riffle

The new Riffle pack raft from NRS weighs just 10 pounds and rolls into a very packable 22"x18"x11.5" so you can carry it for backcountry adventures. Inflated, the raft is 8 feet long, 39 inches wide, with a capacity of 350 pounds. Translation: you can haul this little one-person craft for miles and make the most remote inaccessible waters your own fishing playgrounds.

The NRS Riffle has a tube diameter of 11", one air chamber, and a Bravo valve for quick and easy inflation. The tube is dual TPU-coated 420D nylon, and the self-bailing floor is dual TPU-coated 840D nylon. The removable floor insert—which sits on top of the self-bailing floor to keep you dry—is dual TPU-coated 150D nylon. There is also a full-length inflatable seat that adjusts to three different positions so you can get the most comfortable position for your body type. You can also fold the back rest all the way down for an elevated fishing platform in calm water.

The construction is what sets this pack raft apart, NRS used its extensive background in whitewater rafting and built this little solo craft to be indestructible with seams that are overlapped, RF welded, and internally taped.

You can haul tons of gear with the NRS Riffle, there are 1" nylon webbing loops in the bow and stern for a safety line or attachment points for personal gear. There’s also a lash-tab ladder on the interior bow side for additional gear attachments. The inflatable floor was designed with cut-out spaces for reels behind the seat, so your rods can stay rigged and out of the way while you paddle.

A single TIZIP stern closure allows you to store extra gear inside the tubes, and inside there are two internal, welded fabric lash tabs to secure the gear in place and maintain the boat balance on multi-day trips.

It’s tough, thoughtfully designed by fly fishers, and available to consumers in February 2026.

$1,195 | nrs.com

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Kokopelli Rogue R-deck

There’s a backcountry pond in New Hampshire near my home, let’s call it Secret Pond. It lies almost a mile deep in the conifers and is thronged with alders to its shoreline. It holds a strong population of wild brookies, but unless you’re a roll-casting wizard you need a floating vessel to access the fishing.  

Pack rafting is burgeoning, as it’s obviously appealing to be able to assemble and cast from the stability of an 8-pound raft that inflates in one minute, and  rolls up to the size of 1½ rolls of paper towel. This tool has led to a popular draw to multi-sport adventures where paddlers lash mountain bikes or climbing gear onto the raft for a float to a climb or ride adventure that takes you away, deep into the belly of wilderness that can’t easily be reached through other means.

And one of, if not the, best multi-sport adventures you can tackle with your pack raft is alpine fly fishing. It allows you to get as remote, but with a lighter and more comfortable vessel than the old-school days of float tubes.  

Kokopelli’s Rogue R-deck is the perfect steed for this pursuit, or any backcountry fishing adventure. Kokopelli makes many models with self-bailing floors whereby any water in the vessel will drain out. But the Rogue R-deck is a solid-floor model, with a zip-on, zip-off spray deck which is meant to keep water out but also acts as an effective platform for your fly line.

An optional TIZIP storage system allows you to stash gear inside the pontoons, allowing for overnight trips and massive gear stowage for multi-day excursions. The D-rings on the bow allow for lashing of bags; Kokopelli also makes a custom R-Deck dry bag, which is well worth the additional $99.  

The Rogue R-deck model is built with 210D TPU-coated sidewall pontoons and the same, but with added Kevlar protection on the floor, making it tear resistant and durable for hunting or fishing dogs.  I found the material to be supple enough to roll up tightly, even in cooler temperatures when TPU stiffens. The stability is outstanding, but the portability is the most convenient aspect of the craft.  

Kokopelli sells a breakdown four-piece Alpine Lake Paddle which easily packed, in addition to my PFD, deck pack, USB-C rapid-inflater pump, lunch, and fly-fishing gear, as well as the raft itself, all into a 60L backpack. While not super compact, for the durability of a boat that can also run class II+ whitewater as well as tour high alpine lakes, it is almost without peer.

The ballast of the craft actually improved with added stowage to the TIZIP system storage but is also outstanding unloaded. Casting led to much less oscillation than in a float tube, and the craft was almost as maneuverable. The side pontoon height led to some weathercocking in the wind, but if alpine lakes are your only destination, Kokopelli makes another model, the XPD, which is not only ultralight but has a removable tracking fin for open water.

I tried the Rogue R-Deck not only on Secret Pond but on Class II whitewater on our local Saco River. Coming from an OC-1, or solo open canoe background I was astounded at the stability. It almost made threading pourovers and wave trains unfair as it was so stable. So, if your river excursion requires some moving water between fishing holes, this is the perfect vessel.  

The primary downside to this pack raft is its packed size. While that’s a strength in broad strokes, some other rafts pack down smaller. However, the stability for fishing and removable spray deck make this boat superior, even in the face of a minimally larger rolled size. And the cockpit and inflatable seat are snug but not too much so, making long days on the water comfortable pulling on emerald brookies like we did that morning on Secret Pond.

 —Brian Irwin

$1,399 with TIZIP; $1,249 without TIZIP | kokopelli.com

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Alpacka Caribou

While planning our 20th wedding anniversary trip back to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Nic and I both knew the right gear would be critical to a successful trip. Besides our backpacks and fishing gear, the most essential piece of gear to completing our audacious plan was a pack raft.  

What’s a pack raft, you say? Well, think of a regular river raft—only a miniature one that’s as packable as a synthetic sleeping bag and weighs in at a mere 7 pounds.  

I’d previously been in a pack raft to float down a tame desert river, and we tried ours out on a local reservoir with incredible views of the La Plata Mountains, but other than that, this would be an entirely new adventure.  

Our Alpacka Caribous were folded and rolled tight, strapped to our backpacks, and ready for the hike 20-miles-plus hike deep into the headwaters of the South Fork of the Flathead. One of the models boasted the lightweight 210-denier TPU-coated fabric and it packed down noticeably smaller than the one with the standard fabric. Both fabric options performed amazingly well given the low water and frequent pulling, dragging, and scooting over protruding river rocks thanks to the 840-denier nylon floor.  

The Caribou has a high-volume hull and classic stern to help minimize weight and bulk as well as track straight through rapids. Its late-rise bow provided additional foot room for my husband and gear storage room for me. The four bow strap plates were ideal for attaching my day gear and our rigged fly rods and carried my husband’s backpack easily. We added some bright cordage to the two stern strap plates to steer the boats when we had to slide them through thin sections, and the bow handle made pulling the boat onto shore easy for wade fishing opportunities.  

Sitting in the boats, we got wet passing through occasional rapids (my husband Nic more than me due to his heavier weight), but we were grateful for the self-bailing floors. Water splashed us infrequently, but it was nice to cool off during our August adventure anyway. Due to the self-bailing floor, we didn’t have to get out to dump them out. The seat was supportive and comfortable with an adjustable, inflatable backrest to sit tall and scout while paddling down the river.

One of the most innovative features had to be the airtight, Cargo Fly zipper internal storage system. Before we inflated the rafts, we unzipped them at the stern, inserted the gear we didn’t need for the day like our sleeping gear, food, and clothes, zipped them back up, and inflated them. That was done with an inflation bag with about 10 fills and pushes into the valve and then finished off with air from our lungs to make the Caribous nice and taut. The floor, seat, and backrest were also filled via our lungs.  

For our first adventure with these boats, I’d say it was a screaming success. We spent nine days traversing the length of the Bob Marshall Wilderness from south to north, and the Alpacka Caribous were the perfect rafts for this trip.  

—Kara Armano

$1,250 for the lightweight material with Cargo Fly at 7 pounds and $1,350 for the standard, heavier material with Cargo Fly at 7.8 pounds | alpackaraft.com

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