Box for storing and carrying bait

When going fishing, Pomeranian fishermen would take, along with lines and hooks arranged on trays, boxes, often trough-shaped, containing bait. Due to their small size, these boxes were typically used to carry live or dead gudgeon, minnows, less commonly bullheads or spined loaches, as well as larger fish cut into pieces, earthworms, and river lampreys. As Bogdan Śląski wrote in 1917: "The most common bait used for line fishing nowadays consists of earthworms, dumplings, or cheese; however, live bait (minnows) is sometimes used, especially favoured by pike and perch." The type of bait used depended not only on the species of fish being caught but also on their feeding location and the time of year. In the collections of the Pomeranian Ethnography Department of the National Museum in Szczecin, there are two wooden trough-shaped boxes for storing and carrying bait. The longer sides and the base of this example were made of flat staves attached with small nails to the shorter, solid sides made of semicircular boards equipped with handles. It is very likely that the box from Nowe Warpno (West Pomeranian Voivodeship) was used for fishing on the Szczecin Lagoon. It was purchased for the museum's collection in 1949. Małgorzata Kłosińska-Grzechowiak