How Do You Prepare

[Paul Roberts]

Depends on how much I'm fishing. If a lot, I'm downright anal, and well prepared. If not, I forget stuff, and am outta touch.

[yugrac]

I am ready to fish within 1 day after my last outing, I put the battery chargers on when I get home, take them off that night or next morning, Any rods or gear that need attending to is done early the next morning before work or at lunch.  The closest lake to me is 45 min away, and is a poor example of a fishing lake, 1,200 acres of carp and catfish. I work until 6 pm and makes it 6:30 before I get home so after work trips are not really do-able. Sundays are my only real option, some Sat. afternoons, I work on Sat mornings so thats tough too. Wish I got off at 3 and had a lake that close!

[bassinhole]

I had a similar issue for a while. My bass boat has to be stored about 20 minute form my house at a self storage facility with no available power. So keeping my tackle and batteries in it is not an option. When I take the bassboat out I usually pick it up the night before a trip and install the batteries and get my tackle organized so it can be loaded quickly the next morning.

 

My situation makes it very difficult to plan for an evening trip after work. In order to spend more time on the water I did some thinking. The solution I came up with was to be prepared.   Similar to the way A preper keeps a bug-out bag; I keep a tackle bag stocked with a few of my confidence baits.  I always have rods rigged and ready for the drop of a dime. I picked up a Kayak and suspended it form the ceiling of the garage. Now when I want to take an evening trip or find myself with a couple of free hours on a weekend I didn't initially intend to fish all I have to do is back up the truck, lower the kayak and go.

 

Making preparations to go on an outing every time you get back from an outing makes it easier next time.

 

If you can analyze the the time you take to prepare for a trip and figure out where the inefficiency lies, solutions become very clear.

 

Things that helped me were: 

   -Organizing tackle storage

   -Rod holders

   -Mounting the Kayak on the Ceiling (Gets it out of the way when not in use too!)

   -Keeping a bag ready

   -Knowing my options (Keep looking for bodies of water nearby friendly to fishing)