What I needed was some sort of tough plastic tub of a size to just fit the base of the pocket. Now my garage is full of stuff that normal people would have thrown out years ago. I tried one of the Vitalite tubs, the original round ones which I used to use as impromptu maggot tubs when I was a kid and last week's maggots in the proper bait tub had turned into a buzzing mass of flies! I thought this was a good fit but on the river I realised the reason my landing net pole was sticking out above the rods was because it hadn't gone all the way down. Something else was required.
There on the shelf of ancient tackle, along with two old maggot tubs and my first float rod, was a bucket with some old floats, a swing tip and angled rubbers, a couple of bread punches which had come free with Angling Times or some such and some swimfeeders I'd found years ago. In my teens this had been my worm gathering bucket. It used to have a lid, but that appears to be long gone.
