Necessity is the mother of invention. This saying was definitely proven true in a recent email from Keith Collicoat (pseudo name GILLS-N-THRILLS).

The content went basically as folllows:-

During a recent trip to Exmouth in Western Australia, they, Keith Collicoat, John Williams and Michael Rice found an area of reef that they aptly named the monster patch. There were obviously lots of hard fighting fish at this particular location judging by some of the photos they sent in (see photo gallery).

Because of the size and number of fish being hooked on 12wt plus rods, the softer parts of their bodies were not standing up to well to the the wear and tear  from the rod butts.

Overnight, the research & development team, with only limited access to materials produced the "thong fighting bucket"  as the solution to the problem. In truth, the solution only evolved over a couple of bottles of red that got the creative juices flowing.

It consists of a rubber thong (it doesn't matter whether if it is right or left - whatever you can find on the beach) with an egg cup taped to it using insulation tape. It is generally used by sticking the end down the trousers front under your belt to hold it in position. The added advantage is that it can still be used for the breakfast eggs and in fact it gives better stability to the egg cup.

Well done, hope you have a pending patent.

Nial Logan

Double hookup by John Williams and Michael Rice

 The thong fighting bucket.