[WTB] Cheap Dry Bags

Looking to get some of these for a potential upcoming canoe trip. Mostly need medium to large sizes. Needs to be actually waterproof in the event of capsizing

I’m also in the market if Chris finds what he needs and there are others still interested in selling.

If you are going to the BWCA you can rent a portage pack from outfitters up there.  It should have a heavy duty plastic liner that will keep everything dry.  They are big enough for two people's gear not including food.

If you really wanna be cheap, take contractor trash bags, double or triple them, and twist the hell out of the openings before tying them closed. 

So contractor bags will not survive capsizing. Neither will many lower end "dry bags". I went through a similar buying process recently, and you can't really cheap out, these things don't seem to go on sale. Scouring eBay/FBM/paddling forums will probably be your best bet. Typically a sign of a good bag is the 2 - level rubber seal, so when you fold it is rubber on rubber, not rubber on pvc. Alternatively , the rubber band being offset from the top a couple inches helps. Not sure what the term for this is. Quality brands off the top of my head include NRS, seal line, sea to summit (some models), Seattle sports. Non-exhaustive list.

Good info, thanks. Yeah, in my experience the thick, heavy TPU(?) ones were the ones that were worth a shit and were a true dry bag. The thin/ultralight ones seem like they would protect against rain but not being partially submerged or floating around in a river after flipping the boat. There's outfitters up by where I was going to travel (Temagami) but figured I would make a post here as I would prefer to just buy one used rather than rent a few of em, it's actually not that cheap. 

The group I kayak with have said the ultralight dry bags will leak when submerged.  Water will slowly leak through the fabric when pulled taut sealing up the bag.  Weight really isn't an issue when canoeing like it is for backpacking or backpacking.

If you are going to have loose dry bags in a canoe, make sure to tie securely them to something in the canoe.  You don't want to have a yard sale if you capsize.  And obviously always wear your PFD.

I got a SealLine ILBE dry sack (milsurp) and it's an amazing deal. They're available for 20-25 bucks all over the Internet, are super tough and feature an air valve which allows you to compress the contents a bit. I haven't tested it tripping but I'm sure it'll be awesome, so I recommend that to anyone looking.