MOLLE webbing

MOLLE comes from military load-carrying equipment and stands for modular lightweight load-carrying equipment. The grid of horizontal straps takes attachments that weave through it, so you can add a pliers holster, a bottle pouch or a small tray carrier exactly where you want it.

On a fishing pack it is genuinely useful for tools you need one-handed: pliers, a gripper, a line spool. It also lets you clip things on that would otherwise be buried inside.

The catch is that a pack covered in webbing tends to be heavier and to snag on brush, and a lot of tactical-styled fishing packs carry more of it than anyone needs.

The rows are spaced to a standard, one inch wide with one and a half inch gaps, so pouches from any maker fit any pack. That interoperability is the actual benefit and the reason the standard spread out of the military in the first place.