Benchmark: Fox System Box
To gauge the success of the Fox System Box, just have a look at any rucksack from the 1990s and 2000s and you’ll notice that most had a pocket designed to accommodate one of these boxes...
The Fox System Box was so good, so ubiquitous, it actually changed the design of countless other products you might have assumed were unrelated. You see, Fox’s hard-plastic tackle tray became such a staple of the carp market in the 1990s and 2000s that tackle companies began designing their rig bits to fit perfectly inside it, while luggage manufacturers began sizing the pockets on their carryalls and rucksacks to accept the System Box.
Had it been released today, a dozen internet know-it-alls would instantly type ‘you can get one of those for half the price at B&Q’, but they’d be wrong. Yes, it was similar to a slimline tool box, but it wasn’t identical. The sliding clasps were solid and well designed, the lid was etched with a ruler for measuring rigs and, fundamentally, it was just built from sterner stuff than those hardware-store alternatives. And it was green, not garish red or blue.
Inside, the movable dividers slotted solidly in place and allowed neat-freaks a real opportunity to show off spotless rows of Snake-Bite and PVA dispensers either side of those golden packets of Fox Series 2 hooks. Or Drennan Contis.
If your mind’s eye can rustle up an image of carp fishing the 1990s, chances are we’re both picturing Julian Cundiff in a red jumper in front of rods on single sticks at Selby Three Lakes peering into a System Box perched on his knee. Perhaps they’ll build that statue one day…
