Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the Mac Sports Collapsible Folding Utility Wagon.  While this video focuses on my use of this cart as a fishing cart, it is of course a great all around utility cart as well.  When you hear me talking about going fishing with my “Karen Cart”, this is what I am referring to.  Last year when I started to find some new places around me to fish quite a few were pretty good walks from where you had to park.  Wanting to go beyond a minimalist kit, I decided a fishing cart would be a good idea.  Seemed easy enough, until I started trying to find one.

I very quickly determined that purpose built fishing carts were either total junk quality or great quality but very expensive.  Given this thing only needed to carry my gear to a few stream banks and wasn’t for serious hard core surf fishing, going top end made no sense.  However, neither did over paying for junk.

The place I would go with a purpose built cart would be anywhere with a lot of dry sand.  In that case you need wide off road tires, everywhere else the typical “Karen Cart” you see at kids soccer games and such will work just fine.

Or so I thought until I started reading reviews about how many of these things are also junk.  Chiefly the issue ends up being the wheels and more so the axles and castors.  So many of them have tons of reviews with broken wheels where the castor or the axle simply broke.  I went back to looking at some mid quality and affordable dedicated fishing carts but most did not fold down.  Since I often drive my Challenger now, that is a bit of a problem.

So after going though several dozen options I finally found the Mac Sports brand and was pretty impressed with the over all reviews.  I mean over 26 thousand reviews and 4.8 stars over all, that is about as good as it gets.  So I ordered this last year and have been very happy with it.

I have seen some pretty tricked out fishing carts but all I wanted was something to carry a bucket with a Bubble Box, my Spiderwire Tackle Bag, a cooler with a beer or three and my rods.  So the only mod I really needed was a couple rod holders.  Given my choice of black for the cart, I went with black holders and simply got an inexpensive set of Lixada Rod Holders.  A set of two of those was only 12 bucks.  I simply drilled some pilot holes in the metal frame of the cart and attached them with some self tapping screws.  This was plenty adequate for the job at hand.

Two rods have been plenty for my needs.  However, since I sometimes fish with my grandson or with friends I am going to add two more to the other side of the cart.  Now with my mighty Karen Kart I can now carry all my gear and even a cooler with plenty of ice to all the new cool spots I have found.  It is really helpful when I am keeping fish for my home pond and aquaponics systems.  4 gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket adds 33 pounds alone to the return trip.

One of my new honey holes is about a 1/2 mile walk from the parking lot, across a public disc golf course and though some woods.  Without the Karen Cart taking fish for stocking from this location just would not be practical.  I now use it even in places with a much shorter walk because once you have it why not.  It also makes moving to new spots much more convenient.  For instance one place I fish you can easily park right next to the bank, but in the afternoon all the shade is all on the other side of the pond.  Shade in Texas summer is where you want to be.

Again if you are serious about Surf Fishing I would consider a much more purpose built tool. If you are always going to be using a pick up truck you may want to look at something like the Sea Strike Deluxe Beach Cart.  It is not top end but it is a decent upgrade over my Karen Cart for about the same money once you add the rod holders.  That said if I went that route I would really want to add a cart liner and there goes another 40 bucks.  However if you need something compact that can fit in a trunk or the back of a smaller utility vehicle, the Mac Sports “Karen Cart” with a few rod holders added is hard to beat.  Really hard.  I will also point out this cart will do fine at the beach once you get down by the water in the damp packed sand.  So as in most things, it all depends.

One thing to look out for with cheaper carts beyond the cheap wheels that inevitably break is also the dimensions of the cart itself.  This cart is 35.5 x 20.2 x 22.5 inches and the cargo area itself is 32x16x10 which is plenty of room for a lot of gear.  And yet it folds to only 8 inches thick, about 10 now that I added the rod holders.  Many of these style carts have fairly shallow cargo areas (6-8 inches) and that equals gear falling out when you hit even small bumps.  So check out the Mac Sports Collapsible Folding Utility Wagon and extend your bank fishing options today.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com

P.S. – I did a quick video going on my Karen Cart to go along with this review.  And here is my separate review of the Spider Wire Tackle Bag featured in the video below.  If for any reason the video below does not play well for you a back up version is available on YouTube Here.

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