Bivvy Kitchen

How to Choose Fishing Cooking Equipment

A bankside kitchen is built around the stove, with a kettle or pan that suits it and only the extras you will use. A compact burner, a kettle and a mug cover a night, while a week on a big water justifies a cook station and a full set of pans.

Compact stoves screw straight onto a gas canister and fold small enough for a pocket, with the lightest here at 106g. Low, wide stoves running from a separate canister sit steadier under a big pan and stand firm on uneven ground.

Integrated systems lock a burner and pot together, such as a 1 litre unit weighing 371g, and boil quickly with little wasted heat. Cook stations add a windshield, a griddle and sometimes two burners in one case, at around 2kg to 4.9kg.

Stoves here run on screw thread canisters, long 227g butane cans or larger 450g cans, so check the fitting before you buy fuel. At full power, one stove listed uses 160g an hour from a 227g can, and another uses 175g an hour from a 450g can.

That works out at roughly an hour and a half and two and a half hours of full flame respectively. Simmering or boiling a kettle a few times a day makes a can last far longer.

Butane only turns to gas at about 0C, so a butane stove can splutter or fail on frosty mornings. Propane stays a gas down to around minus 42C, which is why winter canisters mix it with butane or isobutane.

Keeping the canister inside a jacket or sleeping bag overnight helps it light at dawn. Change and fit canisters in the open air, away from any flame.

Fire and rescue services advise never using a stove or barbecue inside a tent, its porch or entrance, because the carbon monoxide can kill and the heat can set the fabric alight. A barbecue keeps giving off carbon monoxide for hours after cooking, so never move one under cover to cool or for warmth.

Carbon monoxide has no colour or smell, and early signs include headache, dizziness, sickness, tiredness and confusion. Fire services also say not to rely on a carbon monoxide detector inside a tent, as they are not designed for those conditions.

Kettles here go up to 2 litres, and square or flat designs pack neatly into a food bag. A frying pan, a deep pan and a sandwich toaster cover most bankside meals, and the toasters listed come in standard and XL sizes.

Check that the base of a pan or kettle suits your stove, as some compact stoves take pans of 18cm across at most.

Folding charcoal barbecues and griddles turn a long session into a social one, and the barbecues listed fold flat enough to slide into a bag. Check the fishery rules first, as some venues do not allow open fires or barbecues.

A vacuum flask keeps a drink hot through a night so you are not lighting the stove for every brew. Food sets bundle plates, bowls and cutlery in a padded case, which keeps the barrow tidy.

Water carriers with a tap, portable showers and towels round off a long stay. Folding bank toilets give a cleaner option on venues with no facilities, with the models here supporting up to 120kg to 160kg.

What to Spend on a Bankside Kitchen

Among stoves and cook stations, the dearest costs about nine times the simplest pocket burner, with live prices from reputable online tackle shops. Towels, toilets and showers are left out of that comparison.

Extra money buys a steadier, more powerful burner, better wind protection and a stove that packs with its pans as one unit. With cookware it buys thicker pans that spread heat evenly and survive years of use.

Of the 103 items listed, 12 have a scored eTackle review covering heat output, build and value. Our tested stoves and cook stations for every budget are in the best fishing stoves guide.