Jam-jar

After bending down to photograph my catch, I felt a cold wetness spreading over the front of my trousers. Not prostate trouble this time: The inside of my fleece was wet too and the source of all this moisture was an opened tin of sweetcorn in my pocket. It was one of those cans with a ring-pull, so you could open it on the bank with no tools and use the corn straight from the tin. It sounded like a good idea but I had to live with the sugary stain all day and I had lacerated my hand on the sharp edges of the tin. Next time I'll tip out the juice and decant the corn into a zip-loc bag.

That unpleasant incident made me think about how I carry bait around. I'm not very scientific about these things; just lazy and penny-pinching and I mostly use my pockets. I remember I once fished waist deep in the Gulf of Mexico with a bag of prawns in my shorts pocket. After a few bumps and shoves I realised that I was being mugged by jack-fish. It could so easily have been worse.

Because I like to be mobile while fishing and I often wade, my bait needs to be right there in my pocket when I need it. Most bait tubs are made for standing on the ground so they have a low profile to avoid spillage. I need the opposite: Tall, thin containers that fit in my pocket but are wide enough to get my hand in. I used to use cocoa or syrup tins

For luncheon meat and corn a plastic bag is fine but for wiggly worms and maggots you need a jam jar. You can see what you have in there and the little blighters find it hard to climb up the glass. That doesn't mean that there won't be a few of them left in your pocket afterwards. I find it's best to keep your fishing jacket out of the wife's wardrobe. Its just amazing how long worms can survive in a Barbour coat. They should make it a selling point. Or perhaps not.