Able Carry has been making the rounds in the blogs and YouTube channels I do follow, and I wanted to check out what they had on offer — but their bags don’t speak to me. So I grabbed two pouches, and found a brand with nice finishing, excellent materials and very low prices. These two pouches have been kicking around my gear for a while now, so let me run you through them both.
Stash Pouch
This is one of my favorite pouches for odds and ends. When I first got it, I tried to use it to organize my EDC gear — pens, cords, chargers — and it didn’t work well for that task. This is a wedge shaped pouch with a curved top opening — and whatever you toss in it sinks to the bottom.
As something you would use to find a specfic thing, there are other pouch options which do it better. But, that’s not really what this pouch is made for, as the name implies, once I switched to using this as a place to stash items quickly, I really feel in love with it. It clocks in at about 4.5” x 8” with a possible depth of just about 2.5”. I say possible, because the pouch is floppy enough that it smashes down on the depth to fit only what you tossed in the pouch.
To use this properly, I had to do something I am not accustomed to: start with the pouch empty. Typically, any pouch I carry has a dedicated use, with gear in it. But a lot of my bags don’t actually have many pockets, or perhaps no good pockets to quickly off load my keys, or wallet, or mask to. By keeping this pouch empty, and on hand, I have been able to use it for just that purpose.
For that it works incredibly well. There are several material offerings here: X-Pac to 1000D. I opted for one of my favorite hybrid materials the X-Pac X51 series, and in this instance it is Multicam Alpine for my snow EDC adventures. This is a 500D Cordura, with an X-Pac ’scrim’ which basically means the plasticky insides of an X-Pac grid is laminated to the inside of the material. In practice it’s a nice feeling and looking material.
I’m a huge fan of this pouch, however I suspect I have a bad run of X-Pac on mine, as the interior clear plastic scrim is delaminating from the Cordura (I have another product I’ll talk about next which is the same material, without this issue, so I think this is a one off). Even with that, I use this pouch all the time and the only modification I did was to add some cord to the zipper to keep it from making noise, and make it easier to grab a hold of.
At $23, this is a hell of a bargain, and a great pouch. Mine rides along in any bag which doesn’t come with a good pocket to stash small bits of gear in.
Find the Stash Pouch here.
Joey Pouch
This pouch is really hard to sort out, because it’s not well defined as to what you use it for. And the more I tried to use it for clever things, the less I liked it. And then, I figured it out.
But, in order to explain this pouch let me first specify what I think this works not well for: pocket organizer, small gear pouch, day to day wallet. It doesn’t hold enough volume to use as a pocket organizer. It has too specific of organization for a small gear pouch. And as a day to day wallet it’s not easy enough to get your stuff in and out of.
I still like it, because I think as an adventure/outdoors wallet it does excel. Which isn’t really the intended use, but it’s the use I find actually works for this.
The best way to explain this all is to step through the parts/features of the Joey Pouch. First, the entire thing is X-Pac, in this case X50 in Multicam Alpine (do note a couple internal layers appear to be white VX21/42 X-Pac). It’s 4.72” x 2.95” with a floppy thickness around half an inch or so depending on what is in it.
At one end is a large Hypalon loop, which can be used as a place to grip the pouch, or to clip it into other gear. Day to day, I found this more annoying than useful, when used as a spot to attach a dummy cord, it makes a lot more sense.
On what I would call the back is a 4/5 or so slanted pocket which wraps around partially to the front. Inside at pocket is a nylon loop, which can be used to tether something like keys into the pouch. This pouch also can/will/does hold a standard credit card — you have to slip it in at a slight angle and then it easily stows in the pocket. Retrieving it is the main issue, as the more full the rest of the pouch, the more annoying/difficult it is to remove a card. This is best used for a small flashlight, or a key.
![](https://brooksreview.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/BFC3E117-0942-4160-AB90-D7FA72C7A289-scaled.jpeg
Coming back around to the front, there’s a zipper that runs the full length, about 1/4 or so away from the edge. Inside that zippered pocket is more stuff. You get another nylon loop to dummy cord something like a key to, and a divider which rises just above the zipper line and is only attached on two sides. This gives you two sections. Cards easily stow here, but require a little finagling to get past the zipper opening. All of that is fine in use, as long as the back pocket isn’t overly full with something.
The more you pack the pouch, the harder it is to get any one thing out of it.
Which is why this is best left to be used as something not that full, and something infrequently used. When I go hiking, I’ll toss my ID, a card, house key, maybe some cash into it, and an SD card if I am out with a camera. All of that will stay put, be easy enough to get to when I return, and will be well protected from the elements in the X-Pac shell.
That I can clip it to my pocket, or into a bag, makes me even more at ease. I would have paid $40 for this and thought it was fine, that it’s $24 makes it an easy decision. I keep mine with my day hiking kit and never worry about it. It’s a good solution there, but day to day I found it lacking a bit in ease of use.
Find the Joey Pouch here.