Water filters?

[KRoberts1]

Okay, we've had our 1st reported case of beaver fever on the board. With WanderingBlues occurance in mind, what water filters are all of you using to prevent YOUR case from happening? I am beginning to feel a need to carry one, something I've never done in 50 years of fishing. Any suggestions???

keith

[RiverRat]

Are there any that filter out chemical from plantations? Just wondering if old school boiling is the safest way to go.

shane

[fly addict]

I have been useing the Seychelle 99.99% filter for years. No bad little buggers for me yet!

Mark

[Wildman]

RiverRat-The chemicals you might be talking about (perhaps fertilizers and rodenticides) both have long life after getting into the system. The primary ingredients in the rat poisons commonly used can kill two or three generations down the line. We have lost a number of Owls, Hawks and Coyotes in our valley who have eaten the rodents who crawl off to die slowly from basically having their insides turn to mush and they bleed to death. The birds and coyote where found next to a pond trying to drink. The internal bleeding makes them very thirsty. Not sure if any filter would take out trace amounts of those things but it might be worth researching with one of the companies like Seychelle.

Ironically, yesterday I saw the wrapper off of a commercial roll of PVC pipe way up a local drainage. I reported it to the Forest LEO's.

[John Harper]

I've got a BOTA Outback water filter. Has a simple cartridge filter, cost about $20. Seems to work fine, no problems yet.

John

[WanderingBlues]

Ironically, yesterday I saw the wrapper off of a commercial roll of PVC pipe way up a local drainage. I reported it to the Forest LEO's.

Ahhhhhhhh, springtime, when a cartel's fancy goes to growing marijuana..... For the record, I have a Sawyer filter. Were it not for my own negligence, I would have been fine. But when I took out the filter for a flushing, I didn't attached the tube correctly. LESSON LEARNED!

[highflyer]

I use a Seychelle also and love it. I have three of them and loan them out tom to those that don't have them.

Alan

[briansII]

I have a Katadyn, Exstream filter bottle. I would not recommend it to anyone. I'm sure it filters fine, but the bottle does not flow easily. You have to SQUEEZE the bottle, and your rewards is a slow, low volume stream of water. It also has a iodine cartridge in the system. If you like a chemical taste in your water, this bottle might be for you. To be fair, I would use this bottle if I was going to be hiking/fishing in some "dirty" water. For cleaner streams, I use Bota and another brand. They look the same, but with different names. Nice flow, and I haven't had any intestinal problems..............knock on wood.

briansII

[Artin]

I use this, but mine is about 4 -5 years old, never had a problem... come to think of it, I never had a problem drinking from stream without one. But to be on the safe side..
http://www.rei.com/product/695265/msr-m ... ter-filter

Artin

[KRoberts1]

http://www.flyfishingaddicts.com/waterf ... on_p1.html

DUH!!! I knew I'd seen that article somewhere. THanks, Doc

keith

[1mocast]

Are there any that filter out chemical from plantations? Just wondering if old school boiling is the safest way to go.

shane

That scares me too...I don't think boiling will remove chemicals. It might just break down the chemical to another compound. The only way I can think of is RO or distillation. I just bring the UV wand for emergencies...

[bensonng]

Yes, no portable filtration system will take out chemicals form runoffs, and such...
Here is a break down of what filtration size you may need for each of type of "bugs" :

Protozoa - 1.0–4.0 microns
Bacteria - 0.2–1.0 microns
Viruses - down to 0.004 microns

I been using a katadyn mini for about 15 years for fishing (clean water streams), and a larger Sweetwater for backpacking. The katadyn mini is slower, but its small and light weight (the ceramic depth filter will last for hundreds of gallons of water), its design well, and comes with a cleaning kit built-in to the filter housing and filter down to 0.2 micron. And it fits into a small pocket in the back of my fishing vest. For anything that is smaller, I use the Katadyn Chlorine Dioxide Tablets, but it takes 4 hours for it to work, its one of the best tasting tablets around (if you can call any of them tasty).

There are filters out there with a secondary iodine filter that will take out Viruses (some people are allergic to Iodine), such as PUR Scout. Most of the filters are for bugs, not chemicals, carbon filters will take out some larger size compounds, but not all.

[NorcalBob]

Fliters that have a charcoal element (in addition to the other stuff you need to filter out germs, viruses, protozoa, etc) will remove some chemical elements. But I still wouldn't drink from any water source I would consider contaminated with chemicals. And I carry an Aquamira filter in my vest at all times!!!

PS: WB wasn't the first casualty this year!!! I beat him by a few months, but I don't talk much about the output end for obvious reasons!!!
Hurrah for Flagyl!!!