Tackle organization with the co-angler in mind

[Cheetahsneverprosper]

I'm not sure if this will actually help anyone or not, but I thought I'd share a few things I've learned over the last few years about organizing fishing takle from the perspective of a non-boater.

When first starting tournaments as a non-boater, I researched as many articles I could find about organizing tackle.  Some of them seemed helpful at first, but I found that most of them are geared toward boaters.  This makes sense, of course, since they have a boat literally full of lures, plastics, and other assorted tackle to have to keep organized.  But almost that entire boat is available for storing that much tackle.  With the design of the modern bass boat, you can have five full size boxes of crankbaits, two or three boxes of spinnerbaits, eight or nine boxes of jigs and worms, and so on..

 

But when you're a non-boater, you simply do not have have the luxury of much square footage to work with.  You not only have a tiny bit of room available, but you need quick and easy access to all of it.  And it has to be as unobtrusive as possible for you and your boater.  But at the same time, you need to be prepared for absolutely any style of fishing that may be thrown your way.  You're not necessarily always going to know what kind of fishing you're going to be doing at any given minute of a tournament and you'd better be prepared for the unexpected to come up.
Those well-laid plans for beating the bank may change completely when they open the dam to generate power, the wind starts blowing 40mph, turning your clear water bay into chocolate milk, or a storm comes in and your planned ledge fishing suddenly turns into a run up the river to get out of the wind and elements.

 

So what does a non-boater really need for keeping tackle organized?

I originally thought it would be a good idea to have one single, large-size bag that holds absolutely everything.  So I purchased one of those Bass Pro Shops tackle bags which holds six 3700 boxes and has big pockets on each side, plus a big front pocket.

Big mistake.

 

On the plus side, it holds a ton of tackle.

On the negative side, it holds a TON of tackle.

Soft plastics are heavy.  Really heavy.  Add crankbaits, chatterbaits, jigs, senkos, buzzbaits, swimbaits, drop shot weights, hooks, and all the other terminal tackle, and that adds up to a massive load of stuff all packed into one container.

 

It's heavy enough that just picking up the bag and putting it in the boat can be a struggle.  No big deal if the boat is tied to the dock and you can just step in.  But often the boat is going to be parked on shore, leaving you access to only the bow, where your boater has a dozen or so expensive poles strapped down to the deck.
If you don't feel like wading into the water and soaking your shoes and pants, there's not much room for hefting that bag past the trolling motor and onto the deck without landing it on one or two of your boater's poles.  If you want to ruin your and your boater's day before it's even started, breaking one of his eyelets before takeoff is a great way to do it.

 

The other problem is the expanded size of those large bags when the side pockets are full.  Often (but not always) your boater will have one of the rear compartments empty for a non-boater to store a tackle bag, rain gear, drinks, etc.  If they do, make good use of it.
Unfortunately, the large bag almost never fits into one of those compartments unless the side and front pockets are completely empty, which they never are.  And it would defeat the whole purpose of having them if they were.

To make matters worse, you're going to need access to certain things quite often during the day, and if you have to keep opening the compartment every time you want to grab another soft plastic, you're going to waste a lot of time that could be better spent fishing.

 

So... after dealing with the annoyance of one annoyingly large tackle bag, I decided to change tactics.
The new, ubreakable rule is that the main tackle bag MUST be small enough to fit into the rear compartment, but still allow for easy access to its contents.
This effectively limits it to four 3700 boxes, plus one smaller box that tucks into the back/outisde of the bag.

 

Here are my individual boxes and their contents:

 

Box 1: Jigs & Punch Rigs

Includes all Craw style jigs, Bitsy Bugs and jig trailers, plus punch weights, punch skits and hooks.

 

Box 2: Chatterbaits, Swim Jigs, Swim Jig Heads, and various colors of Swimbaits.

So far I haven't had any problems with the swimbait tails taking a 'set' from being stored like this, but I may have to move things around if it does occur.
Possibly leaving them in bags and keeping them in the soft plastics tackle bag.

 

Box 3 Topwater Solid and hollowbody Frogs, Buzzbaits, Spooks, Poppers, Whopper Ploppers

 

Box 4: Crankbaits, Spinnerbaits, Lipless Crankbaits, Jerkbaits, Wakebaits
This is the interesting one, as I used to bring a 3700 size box filled with spinnerbaits and buzzbaits, and another 3700 box filled with crankbaits.
I rather quickly realized that I'd use one or two spinnerbaits throughout the entire day, and maybe 2 or 3 crankbaits at most.  Almost all the rest of this space was completely wasted.
As a non-boater, you're not going to be going through one or two dozen crankbaits and spinnerbaits in an 8-hour tournament, so why bother bringing so many?

What I found that I needed is small, carefully-chosen selection for multiple situations, which could all fit into one single 3700 box.

- Top left is deep crankbaits, five of them in various colors
- Top right is large squarebill crankbaits, five or six colors
- Middle left is thin squarebill crankbaits, and next to it is Lipless crankbaits.
- To the right of those are smaller squarebills
- Bottom middle is filled with wakebaits, jerkbaits, and one large segmented crankbait.

 

The bottom left and right corners took a little bit of work to fit in some spinnerbait holders.
I sacrificed the large spinnerbait box I'd previously used, pulling out the 'rack' that holds the spinnerbaits in place.

Cutting the rack into thirds, the outside portions still contained the tabs that hold the rack in place at the sides of the box.
These tabs fit into the slots that make up the box separators, while the cut end of them (which do not have tabs) can either be left loose, or simply cement/epoxy the bottom of the rack in place.

Now those two mini-racks hold 7 white spinnerbaits and 7 colored ones.  Enough to cover pretty much all situations and depths, while taking up very little room.

 

Box 5 is a smaller one which contains only Senkos and an O-Ring tool & nail weights.  It fits neatly into a pouch on the back of the tackle bag.

 

With all that in the main tackle bag, that leaves a second, smaller bag which remains with me, sitting on the floor at my feet while the boat is running, and on the seat while fishing.  It contains the soft plastics I use the most, separated into bags of bags with the biggest possible labels on them

Because this bag remains easily accessible, it also contains:

1) My most-needed/important small stuff for the day (Pliers, Scale, Line Clippers, Culling tags, Culling beam, Attractant, etc.)

2) A small box containing my most-used terminal tackle.  I may need to get into this dozens of times a day, so it needs to be compact but organized.

3) A small box of drop shot hooks and weights.  Drop shot is a co-anglers best friend.  I can't stress that enough.

 

Does anybody else have tackle organizing tips to share?

If so, it would be interesting to see.  Especially for non-boaters with limited room.

 

[dwh4784]

Ooh I'll play. I don't tourney fish, but I fish from a kayak so I'm very limited in space. I pack everything I need in a cheap $12 Cabelas bag that came with 4 3500 series boxes. I've purchased several others, and bring an appropriate 6 it fits along for each trip. I have room for three rod/reels so between those and 6 boxes I've got enough crap to mess around with.

Here's what lurks inside. Left pocket holds the scale and a ziplock baggie for my wallet/keys/phone. Right pocket pliers/hook removers. A line cutter attaches to the spring thingy. The Panther Martin spinner baits are riding on top for now not sure where they'll end up.

This box has chatterbaits, buzz bait, jigs, Strike King mini king's

This one has 5" Senkos w/ 5/0 hooks, a Johnson's Silver Minnow spoon, some crawdads I've never used. Also my last couple white Slug-Go's which used to be the only plastic I threw.

This one has 4" Senkos, and 3/0 hooks and some grubs for smallies, some other random stuff I'll let people use that don't have their own gear.

Hard bait topwater selection here. Rio Rico's, a Sammy, chewed up old Devil's Horse I lifted from dad years ago, Whopper Plopper, Live Target Frog, mini Pop-R.

Hollow body topwaters. Live Target field mice, sunfish, Spro frog, Spro popping frog, Flip in the bird red wing blackbird.

Hard baits consist of a 1/4 oz Rat-l-trap,1/2 oz SK red eye shad, slightly larger Rapala, couple of Berkley flicker shads, Norman Scorpion, Shad Rap, original floating Rapala and Smithwick Rogue that I stole from dad years ago (I'm sensing a theme, but it's OK because he quit bass fishing and only golfs now).

Inline spinners. Some of these have been great producers. I had one trip with my wife where that gold Vibrax in the middle caught all but one fish between both of us the entire day. The larger ones are new hoping to try them out soon.

Trout and panfish stuff. Spoons and float-n-fly gear. Beetle spins, road runner, tube jigs.

I fish two places that are selective gear, single barbless hooks and no baits or scents. So a box for that as well.

I've also just ordered some new smallmouth stuff, tubes and shaky heads. So another box is probably in the near future.

 

[gripnrip]

Man! Slick thinking on the spinnerbait storage part!  I just used a spinnerbait wallet.  It was better than a big box but you're idea is awesome. 

[BradGinKC]

@Cheetahsneverprosper  Thanks for this info. Lots of good suggestions. You're right about an oversized tackle bag being a mistake. I once brought a big, ungainly beast of a tackle bag fishing as a backseater. I'll never make that mistake again! I don't fish as a non-boater very often, but I have a small jon boat that I use as my secondary boat to fish some of the smaller local lakes. I'm definitely going to steal a couple of your ideas for those situations. Thanks again

[mllrtm79]

For Christmas my usual boater (gf's stepdad) gave me a plano bag that has 4 3750 boxes in it. Almost perfect, and the outside pockets hold a small box with terminal tackle in it and a 3600 with senkos. I reckon he got tired of watching me struggling with just the BASS bag.

[Fishin' Fool]

On 1/20/2017 at 11:05 PM, Cheetahsneverprosper said:

I'm not sure if this will actually help anyone or not, but I thought I'd share a few things I've learned over the last few years about organizing fishing takle from the perspective of a non-boater.

When first starting tournaments as a non-boater, I researched as many articles I could find about organizing tackle.  Some of them seemed helpful at first, but I found that most of them are geared toward boaters.  This makes sense, of course, since they have a boat literally full of lures, plastics, and other assorted tackle to have to keep organized.  But almost that entire boat is available for storing that much tackle.  With the design of the modern bass boat, you can have five full size boxes of crankbaits, two or three boxes of spinnerbaits, eight or nine boxes of jigs and worms, and so on..

 

But when you're a non-boater, you simply do not have have the luxury of much square footage to work with.  You not only have a tiny bit of room available, but you need quick and easy access to all of it.  And it has to be as unobtrusive as possible for you and your boater.  But at the same time, you need to be prepared for absolutely any style of fishing that may be thrown your way.  You're not necessarily always going to know what kind of fishing you're going to be doing at any given minute of a tournament and you'd better be prepared for the unexpected to come up.
Those well-laid plans for beating the bank may change completely when they open the dam to generate power, the wind starts blowing 40mph, turning your clear water bay into chocolate milk, or a storm comes in and your planned ledge fishing suddenly turns into a run up the river to get out of the wind and elements.

 

So what does a non-boater really need for keeping tackle organized?

I originally thought it would be a good idea to have one single, large-size bag that holds absolutely everything.  So I purchased one of those Bass Pro Shops tackle bags which holds six 3700 boxes and has big pockets on each side, plus a big front pocket.

Big mistake.

 

On the plus side, it holds a ton of tackle.

On the negative side, it holds a TON of tackle.

Soft plastics are heavy.  Really heavy.  Add crankbaits, chatterbaits, jigs, senkos, buzzbaits, swimbaits, drop shot weights, hooks, and all the other terminal tackle, and that adds up to a massive load of stuff all packed into one container.

 

It's heavy enough that just picking up the bag and putting it in the boat can be a struggle.  No big deal if the boat is tied to the dock and you can just step in.  But often the boat is going to be parked on shore, leaving you access to only the bow, where your boater has a dozen or so expensive poles strapped down to the deck.
If you don't feel like wading into the water and soaking your shoes and pants, there's not much room for hefting that bag past the trolling motor and onto the deck without landing it on one or two of your boater's poles.  If you want to ruin your and your boater's day before it's even started, breaking one of his eyelets before takeoff is a great way to do it.

 

The other problem is the expanded size of those large bags when the side pockets are full.  Often (but not always) your boater will have one of the rear compartments empty for a non-boater to store a tackle bag, rain gear, drinks, etc.  If they do, make good use of it.
Unfortunately, the large bag almost never fits into one of those compartments unless the side and front pockets are completely empty, which they never are.  And it would defeat the whole purpose of having them if they were.

To make matters worse, you're going to need access to certain things quite often during the day, and if you have to keep opening the compartment every time you want to grab another soft plastic, you're going to waste a lot of time that could be better spent fishing.

 

So... after dealing with the annoyance of one annoyingly large tackle bag, I decided to change tactics.
The new, ubreakable rule is that the main tackle bag MUST be small enough to fit into the rear compartment, but still allow for easy access to its contents.
This effectively limits it to four 3700 boxes, plus one smaller box that tucks into the back/outisde of the bag.

 

Here are my individual boxes and their contents:

 

Box 1: Jigs & Punch Rigs

Includes all Craw style jigs, Bitsy Bugs and jig trailers, plus punch weights, punch skits and hooks.

 

Box 2: Chatterbaits, Swim Jigs, Swim Jig Heads, and various colors of Swimbaits.

So far I haven't had any problems with the swimbait tails taking a 'set' from being stored like this, but I may have to move things around if it does occur.
Possibly leaving them in bags and keeping them in the soft plastics tackle bag.

 

Box 3 Topwater Solid and hollowbody Frogs, Buzzbaits, Spooks, Poppers, Whopper Ploppers

 

Box 4: Crankbaits, Spinnerbaits, Lipless Crankbaits, Jerkbaits, Wakebaits
This is the interesting one, as I used to bring a 3700 size box filled with spinnerbaits and buzzbaits, and another 3700 box filled with crankbaits.
I rather quickly realized that I'd use one or two spinnerbaits throughout the entire day, and maybe 2 or 3 crankbaits at most.  Almost all the rest of this space was completely wasted.
As a non-boater, you're not going to be going through one or two dozen crankbaits and spinnerbaits in an 8-hour tournament, so why bother bringing so many?

What I found that I needed is small, carefully-chosen selection for multiple situations, which could all fit into one single 3700 box.

- Top left is deep crankbaits, five of them in various colors
- Top right is large squarebill crankbaits, five or six colors
- Middle left is thin squarebill crankbaits, and next to it is Lipless crankbaits.
- To the right of those are smaller squarebills
- Bottom middle is filled with wakebaits, jerkbaits, and one large segmented crankbait.

 

The bottom left and right corners took a little bit of work to fit in some spinnerbait holders.
I sacrificed the large spinnerbait box I'd previously used, pulling out the 'rack' that holds the spinnerbaits in place.

Cutting the rack into thirds, the outside portions still contained the tabs that hold the rack in place at the sides of the box.
These tabs fit into the slots that make up the box separators, while the cut end of them (which do not have tabs) can either be left loose, or simply cement/epoxy the bottom of the rack in place.

Now those two mini-racks hold 7 white spinnerbaits and 7 colored ones.  Enough to cover pretty much all situations and depths, while taking up very little room.

 

Box 5 is a smaller one which contains only Senkos and an O-Ring tool & nail weights.  It fits neatly into a pouch on the back of the tackle bag.

 

With all that in the main tackle bag, that leaves a second, smaller bag which remains with me, sitting on the floor at my feet while the boat is running, and on the seat while fishing.  It contains the soft plastics I use the most, separated into bags of bags with the biggest possible labels on them

Because this bag remains easily accessible, it also contains:

1) My most-needed/important small stuff for the day (Pliers, Scale, Line Clippers, Culling tags, Culling beam, Attractant, etc.)

2) A small box containing my most-used terminal tackle.  I may need to get into this dozens of times a day, so it needs to be compact but organized.

3) A small box of drop shot hooks and weights.  Drop shot is a co-anglers best friend.  I can't stress that enough.

 

Does anybody else have tackle organizing tips to share?

If so, it would be interesting to see.  Especially for non-boaters with limited room.

 

 

Nicely done. I'm a non-boater like you in a bass club. I have the same size bag. What I've figured out is I use a mixture of the Plano boxes and gallon sized zip-loc bags that consist of individual techniques. So I have one plastic bag for drop shots, one for senkos, one for crawdad lures, one for other worms. My 6 Plano boxes consist of tube baits with jigheads, top water, lipless cranks, mid depth cranks and deep diving cranks. The challenge is to figure out what to weed out and bring to the event. If I'm on fish in practice on tip water and drop shotting, I may leave the rest of my boxes at home but that comes with a risk. One of my boaters showed me a technique he uses to optimize his time on the water the day of the tournament. He has what he calls his "go box" what has back ups for all the lures he plans to throw that day including the terminal tackle. That way he's not wasting time digging through his boxes in storage.

[HOG727]

Thanks to the original poster.  It's better than any magazine article I've read.

      I do the co angler thing, fish out of my bass boat,  fish with friends in their boat, and fish out of canoes and kayaks.  With rods, food, drinks, foul weather gear,  organizing your tackle is a great topic.  The Co angler has some issues that make organization and efficiency a huge challenge.  The boaters aren't always specific about what you're going to be doing.  So, you sometimes have to be ready to fish anywhere on the lake at any depth, any speed.   The storage space is not a given either.  You have to worry about your tackle blowing out at 70mph and getting rained on.   I use the NRS Saddle Bag Cooler to be water PROOF and strap it to whatever is availabe with a bungee that has a carabiner on each end.   It will fit at your feet and you can attach the carabiner to your hand hold.     

       

[WIGuide]

I normally fish as a boater in tournaments, but I've fished a few as a co as well as just fishing with friends who offer to take their boats and I've changed my system over the years as well. I originally always wanted to brig everything, but as my tackle collection grew, that started to become harder and harder to do. I finally adapted my system for my boat and made it portable. Normally I store all my hard baits in 3700 series trays, with the exception of a few styles of baits that I don't have nearly as many of, those are in 3600 trays. Plastics are kept in 3600's for my most used baits and then in original packaging and in ziplock bags for those used less often. What I've done is purchased a few extra 3700 size trays and 2 trays that are half the size of a 3700 with no dividers. These trays allow me to condense my hardbait selections into a tray or two and I can just pick a few of my favorite baits from each category. The half sized open containers I fill with bags of soft plastics I want to use. My moderate size tackle bag holds 5 regular sized trays. I keep all my hooks and terminal tackle in 3701's which are half the depth of a 3700 so that's 1/5, hard baits are in 1 or 2 3700 trays so that's space 2 & 3/5, the two half sized trays with plastics go in spot 4/5, and spot 5/5 will usually be filled by a 3600 tray with whatever of my favorite plastics I feel will play best that day. My spinnerbait/swim jig binder lays on top and gets zipped into the main compartment. The outer pockets of my bag get filled with a few more bags of soft plastic if needed. I know this bag is not small, but it's not huge either. I feel it's big enough for me to keep my bases covered yet not bring tons of stuff.

One last thing I've found that helps me stay organized is the Tackle Warehouse rod bag. It's got a few extra pockets to store stuff like sunglasses pliers and even an extra packs of plastics. On the back it's got a pouch for me to keep all my rod gloves and reel gloves in and it sits nicely on most rod ramps. It makes it easier to transport the rods and since it can stay on the rod ramp, it stays out of the way throughout the day. I would definitely recommend it for someone who fishes as a co, or out of others boats often. 

[Cheetahsneverprosper]

On 3/6/2017 at 3:04 PM, WIGuide said:

One last thing I've found that helps me stay organized is the Tackle Warehouse rod bag. It's got a few extra pockets to store stuff like sunglasses pliers and even an extra packs of plastics. On the back it's got a pouch for me to keep all my rod gloves and reel gloves in and it sits nicely on most rod ramps. It makes it easier to transport the rods and since it can stay on the rod ramp, it stays out of the way throughout the day. I would definitely recommend it for someone who fishes as a co, or out of others boats often. 

Wow, I've been to Tackle Warehouse a million times and somehow never noticed that rod bag.  Looks pretty sweet.  Might have to give that a try as the season is FINALLY ready to get started.

[corn-on-the-rob]

Great advice!

 

My only commentary is be careful storing (salted) soft plastics in the same boxes as any hooks/hardware, under the right conditions it will rust quickly!

[WIGuide]

15 hours ago, Cheetahsneverprosper said:

Wow, I've been to Tackle Warehouse a million times and somehow never noticed that rod bag.  Looks pretty sweet.  Might have to give that a try as the season is FINALLY ready to get started.

I found it on there a few years ago, but I was in the same boat. They happened to have it as one of the items for their Christmas sale and when I saw it, I figured I'd give it a shot. It's really nice even if for no other fact that it keeps your rod tips together. Doorways are no longer an issue when carrying multiple rods.  

[Hopslam]

Good setup! I'm right there with you. I use a backpack I've had since highschool, and pack it full of what I think the necessities will be for that tournament. I fish as a co-angler too. I don't want to bring a tackle box, binder of plastics, and a handful of rods into someone's boat and it be a hassle.  In my opinion this is all the tackle I would need in a tournament or fun fishing. Contents are scissors, pliers, 50lb power pro, 17lb flurocarbon (heavy cover leader if needed), smelly jelly, 17 assorted jigs, 7 jerkbaits, 4 frogs, 4 poppers, 4 lipless, 2 spinnerbaits, 15 crankbaits, 22 bags of plastics ( one bag is senkos/ribbon tails/ finesee, other is creatures/ craws/ beavers