If you could reset your tackle box and do it all over, what would you include?

[Tackett1980]

Just curious here.  Given the many years I've been fishing, my tackle is kind of....out of hand.  I've even got a set of those flying lures.  Remember those?

 

Im tying to get back to basics and set up some tackle that I'll actually use and put some other stuff in the garage.

 

So let's hear it.  

[Catt]

Pretty much everything I have now  ?

[Russ E]

1 hour ago, Catt said:

Pretty much everything I have now  ?

 

[MichaelCopeland]

That's a tough question. Just knowing that the baits/lures that I already have has its purpose. I just haven't found alot of them out yet. One thing I would do is, for the ones that work for me, get a couple brighter and natural colors to use when the darker ones aren't working. For instance junebug red and red bug colors of the Zoom Ol' Monsters has worked very well for me and the black and blue and the white chatter baits have done well also. However they aren't producing that well right now and I think if I added a couple different colors of them to my tackle box I might start having some success with them again. Just to give a little bit of a different look. Same baits just different color may attract more bites. Especially since I fish the same two ponds almost everyday. I'm sure there's a few I need to add to my arsenal that I don't have at the moment. Just gotta figure out which ones to add. I know I need to add some mid depth baits to my tacklebox, I just don't know which ones to get. I still have tons of learning to do though. I'll get around to them eventually.

[Senko lover]

Basically what @Catt said. I fish with the same things, mostly. Jigs, trick worms, squarebills, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, lipless crankbaits, topwaters, and texas rigs. I narrow my plastics down to Rage Craws and trick worms, pretty much for everything. I fish one type of squarebill, the KVD 1.5. I only use Rage Chunks on my jigs. I only throw the Strike King Red Eye Shad for a lipless. 

 

I guess I'm a pretty simple guy with fishing lures. I've had tremendous success on some lures or baits and decided to focus on them. And no, I have no affiliation with Strike King, just like 'em. 

[MichaelCopeland]

23 minutes ago, Senko lover said:

Basically what @Catt said. I fish with the same things, mostly. Jigs, trick worms, squarebills, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, lipless crankbaits, topwaters, and texas rigs. I narrow my plastics down to Rage Craws and trick worms, pretty much for everything. I fish one type of squarebill, the KVD 1.5. I only use Rage Chunks on my jigs. I only throw the Strike King Red Eye Shad for a lipless. 

 

I guess I'm a pretty simple guy with fishing lures. I've had tremendous success on some lures or baits and decided to focus on them. And no, I have no affiliation with Strike King, just like 'em. 

I've got a 3 of the SK red eye shad. Can't remember the colors. 2 are brand new, giving to me by one of my bosses. 1 is a pearl/white kinda color and 1 is a craw kinda color. The third one I actually caught in the smaller pond by my house yesterday with a Rat-L-Trap...lol. That thing must've been in that pond for quite some time. It's slightly faded the eyes look like they have cataracts, the split rings were so rusted that the one you tie the line to just broke right off and the hooks are rusted really bad too. I figure I can put new split rings and hooks on it and it will work just fine. I thinks it's a sexy shad color. Thinking about giving them a try tomorrow.

[XpressJeff]

3 hours ago, Catt said:

Pretty much everything I have now  ?

+1

[CroakHunter]

Wouldn't include anything, but would exclude all buzzbaits, frogs, poppers, shakey heads, and senko style baits. Way too much money wasted on these baits. 

[ohboyitsrobby]

3 hours ago, Catt said:

Pretty much everything I have now  ?

What he said plus add some more

[RPreeb]

I'm not really sure what more I'd add, but I would probably eliminate about 75% of the plastics that I've been compulsively buying.  While I admit that they catch fish, I'm finding that I don't enjoy fishing them as much as I do more active baits.  They will probably be relegated to a last resort in my rotation.

 

As this is my first summer of bass fishing, I haven't gotten around to buying any spinnerbaits or buzzbaits, so that is most likely to come up in my future.

[Sword of the Lord]

1 hour ago, CroakHunter said:

Wouldn't include anything, but would exclude all buzzbaits, frogs, poppers, shakey heads, and senko style baits. Way too much money wasted on these baits. 

WTH is wrong with Senkos??

[Catt]

When I try new lures it's first priority is to produce better than what I already have.

 

I use to throw Sweet Beavers until the Rage Bug came along. The Bug out produced the Beaver in every situation & on every body of water.

 

So I aint got no mo Sweet Beavers!

[MichaelCopeland]

7 minutes ago, Catt said:

When I try new lures it's first priority is to produce better than what I already have.

 

I use to throw Sweet Beavers until the Rage Bug came along. The Bug out produced the Beaver in every situation & on every body of water.

 

So I aint got no mo Sweet Beavers!

Gotta get me some of those Rage Bugs. Think I saw some at Wally World. Next time I'm there gonna check and if they got em then I'm gonna get em.

[CroakHunter]

1 hour ago, MichaelCopeland said:

Gotta get me some of those Rage Bugs. Think I saw some at Wally World. Next time I'm there gonna check and if they got em then I'm gonna get em.

All credit to the magnum rage bug. Black red flake

2 hours ago, Sword of the Lord said:

WTH is wrong with Senkos??

I don't enjoy fishing them, and when I do it's on a carolina rig or pitching the 7" senkos with a 3/8 ounce weight. But I won't knock their effectiveness, I whooped up on my buddy who refuses to throw them many times.  

[Bluebasser86]

2 hours ago, Sword of the Lord said:

WTH is wrong with Senkos??

Lots of guys hate fishing them. Fishing is supposed to be fun so if someone doesn't enjoy fishing them why would they want them? I recently sold most of my crankbaits because I hate fishing them and don't catch many fish on them. I know they work and lots of guys do great with them, but I don't enjoy fishing them, even when I'm catching fish on them, so why bother owning them?

 

I've been working on paring down my baits in the boat. If I could reset one thing, I'd like to have all the money back that I spent on all the crankbaits that I just sold. 

[TOXIC]

When you hear from a top level pro after a bad finish what is the most common thing they say?.......I didn't adapt to a change in conditions.......With that being said most all of them have certain "strengths" or styles of baits they do best with.  If I were to start over not knowing my "strengths" or confidence baits it would have to be a mix of lures that would cover all of the water column because as Gary Klein once told me, "If you find the fish, there's at least 5 baits I can catch them on".  My boat is a floating tackle box though and I wouldn't leave home without every one of my baits.  The key is to not get overwhelmed and have 200 crankbaits or 100 different colors of plastics.  

[Mike L]

Get rid of 1/2 my inventory of plastics. I have so many unopened bags of stuff I was given to try, won, or bought just for the heck of it it's crazy.

I have a few deep diving crank's that are still in the package!

Why would someone buy DD when 95% of the time he's fishing in 10ft or less? Or carry around a dozen football jigs when the only rock I see from the water are crushed stones in the parking lot?  I don't know either 

 

 

 

Mike

[Largemouth21]

5 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Lots of guys hate fishing them. Fishing is supposed to be fun so if someone doesn't enjoy fishing them why would they want them? I recently sold most of my crankbaits because I hate fishing them and don't catch many fish on them. I know they work and lots of guys do great with them, but I don't enjoy fishing them, even when I'm catching fish on them, so why bother owning them?

 

 

This, I never catch any fish on cranks either, so you're definitely not alone.

 

 

[the reel ess]

At my age I'm getting tired of chunking and winding all day. Spinnerbaits and lipless cranks still work for me, but I'm in favor of techniques that don't feel like labor when they'll work.

[Catt]

Gary Klein also explained it this way, if there was a bush in the back of a cove with a 5# bass in it & Denny Brauer when by he would catch it on a black/blue jig. If KVD when by that same bush he would catch it on a spinner bait & if Rick Clunn went by that same bush he would catch on a buzz bait. It was not the lure selection but location of the bass.

[Hog Basser]

I love trying out new baits and getting them to work still at this point.  I have narrowed down my main selection of productive baits, but still love trying out new ones and variations to see if anything works better.  For those I don't use, I still carry a lot of them out with me and let my nephews or friends borrow them.  They can catch fish on them, as I could, but I may just enjoy working with something else better.  I foresee really narrowing down my boxes in the near future and building some boxes out of those baits I cast aside to let others borrow as an entire box when they go out with me and don't have much of their own.  I take a lot of people (nephews, friends, and soon my sons) out with me that don't have near as much gear, so I'm happy to supply and it puts those baits to good use. 

[12poundbass]

If I could reset, I'd get a bigger tackle box! 

[Tw3ak]

If I can't make it I don't fish it..... That's how I killed the lure hoarder in me. I accidentally stumbled on to a better mouse trap. My home made chatterbait style lures have a major advantage to me. I throw them on top of the slop and fish them like a frog, then keep retrieve going all the way back without a mustache. Haven't been able to do that with a zman lure ever. 

[Darren.]

Welcome aboard!

 

With learning to fish the Ned rig this year, I'd probably stock

up on various size and weight hooks and plenty of TRDs.

 

Other than that, lots of Senko/Stik-O baits for wacky rigging,

and a mess of drop shot baits. These are bread-and-butter for

me (incl. Ned). Not much of a hard lure guy, though I do throw

some on occasion.

 

That said, I'd also have a stock of light to medium heavy jigs

some frogs, cranks, a few lipless cranks, and maybe a whopper

plopper to try out.

[slonezp]

7 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

If I could reset, I'd get a bigger tackle box! 

That's called a boat.