How Do You Organize Your Tackle

[Sam]

^{As a follow up, at home I have the baits stored in either plastic containers or furniture by either types or techniques.}

^{I have 39 plastic or wooden draws that hold the baits and tackle in my Man Cave.}

^{Sometimes I can find things easily; other times I have to hunt and try to remember where I put the specific bait.}

[RyneB]

I have peg boards full of plastics, unopened hard baits and such. I am very very organized until my second or 3rd time out. Then i have stuff everywhere.

[Hooligan]

My "restocking" storage is much like RoadWarrior; I have a stall of the garage that is dedicated space to storage of tackle and gear. Any reels that I have are shelved, rods are hung on Pirahna rod racks without reels. All of my bulk plastics are hung on two 4x8 sheets of pegboard, all of my hardbaits in original packaging are stored on another 4x8 sheet. I have three sets of shelving that are dedicated to holding 3700 size boxes sorted by bait, depth, color, and brand. All of my jigs and/or wire baits are in 3750 size boxes with all jigs sorted by color and weight. It's a pretty straight forward system to keep everything organized and together. I can also keep an accurate inventory of what I have along with what's in the boat.

[bassh8er]

Pretty much like everybody else, but I did make a soft plastics storage system that is all my own and works pretty well so far... I think I've posted this in 2 other threads already, so what's one more? I've also found that wrapping the treble hooks together with rubberbands as shown allows you to get a lot more cranks in the same compartments with no issues of tangling.

Topwaters

Swimbaits

Spinnerbaits

Shallow divers

Mid-divers

[bassh8er]

Lucky Crafts

Jigs

Jerkbaits and lipless cranks

Frogs

Deep cranks

[bassh8er]

And finally the soft plastics system...

Main storage area, separated by bait type

An example of what's inside each tub. All batis are left in their original bags to help keep them even more organized.

Buzzbaits and chatterbaits

[Dennis1022]

Bassh8er, I like the idea you had about tying up the treble hooks on your lures. The only thing is rubber bands will dri rot or melt onto your crank baits. I had several lures that had rubber bands on and they just melted on the lures. So what I did is use twist ties from bread bags and other ties from things you buy in big boxes that can be cut down to extend the twist ties.

Now what would you bring on a river and using a canoe and not a Bass boat? Then you have to make a special amount of lures to carry with you. I even had to cut down on rods I used to bring. I use to bring 14 rods & reels like half Baitcasters & SpinningReels. Now I only bring max. is 4 rods. I use to have a Bass Boat, but sold it and now only have a canoe and a semi V that needs repair.

[tpsneaks18]

I personally keep a bag with 3700 planos that store my hard baits...categorized into Lipless, deep/medium divers, shallow/square bill/wake, and topwater, then bladed baits and buzzers n bladed swim jigs. I will pick out from my tackle @ home and switch out what I think I need for the particular pond/tournament based on season, water clarity, past experience, etc.

But for plastics I buy 2.5 gallon Zip Loc bags...I label them in Categorys like "dropshot baits", "Beaver Baits/Craw Baits", "Stickbaits/Senkos", "Lizards", "Tubes", etc...then I keep the baits in their original packaging and throw them in the zip locs...This way when I know of a type of bait i want, i can quickly go right to that category and make my decision. Best way I've found for soft plastics and saves me time on the water. The Gigantic Plano Open Storage "stowaways" work great to house the plastics in the zip locs...the HUGE one w/ no separations, just a big open box.

[hike4steel]

I have just started storing my soft plastics in 3700 boxes making a switch from large freezer bags. I have removed them from their respective pacages to maximize storage space. I am likeing it this way. They are eayier to find then rooting through bags. the only drawback so far is you can't soak a whole bag of worms with garlic or you leave them in the bag. Hardbaits stored in3700 also in similar way as the rest of the organized to semi organized fishermen.

[bassh8er]

Bassh8er, I like the idea you had about tying up the treble hooks on your lures. The only thing is rubber bands will dri rot or melt onto your crank baits. I had several lures that had rubber bands on and they just melted on the lures. So what I did is use twist ties from bread bags and other ties from things you buy in big boxes that can be cut down to extend the twist ties.

Now what would you bring on a river and using a canoe and not a Bass boat? Then you have to make a special amount of lures to carry with you. I even had to cut down on rods I used to bring. I use to bring 14 rods & reels like half Baitcasters & SpinningReels. Now I only bring max. is 4 rods. I use to have a Bass Boat, but sold it and now only have a canoe and a semi V that needs repair.

I have been using the rubber bands for 3 years now with 0 issues. I have also fished out of canoes, kayaks, and small 2-man boats and just grab gear accordingly before heading out.

[Dennis1022]

Bassh8er Thanks for your response on this issue. I was just wondering about the rubber bands melting onto the lures. Another thing was that my tackle box was a Plano 747, I had put my spinnerbaits and the rubber skirt stuck/melted to crank bait lures. The reason I brought up the issue of the canoe is that I had to sell my bass boat and now just have the 2. That is a canoe and a Semi - V Grumman 1978, that the semi needs to have work. so I have to down size my load to carry on the canoe. So I'm trying to figure out the lures to put into a smaller tackle box. If anyone has ever had this issue I would gratefully accept your input. Oh by the way, Bassh8er I wasn't putting your idea down, just was wondering if you had the problem, in fact I really like it the way you had put all those lures and don't get tangled up! Keep safe on this Memorial Day and never forget those who never came back.

[logan9209]

i try to keep mine organized. try. i bank fish (no boats allowed at my lake) so i don't wanna carry every thing i have. since i tend to use soft plastics in the end, i just carry all of them in the book bag in original bags (or a zip lock if one isn't available). my cranks in one case and jigs and spinners in another. problem is that i get lazy sometimes usually put them in the wrong box on the fly or i'll put the soft plastic in one of the other pockets of my backpack.

[hatrix]

I keep all my stuff in Plano boxes. I have 2 boxes that are my main ones that are mixed up. I don't need to have a bunch of the same style lures in one box. I just keep lures that are proven to me and they have basically any thing in the box I need from terminal of all sizes to plastics to cranks or any thing. If I am doing a quick pond run I will fill up a empty plastics bag with what I want to fish and carry that in my back pocket.

[Scorcher214]

I have a BPS stalker tackle bag. Usually everything is in it but right now all the plastics are strewn over my couch because I couldnt find my albino flukes....they were in my satchel.

But this is usually how it is done:

-1 3600 for cranks

-1 3600 plano fto spinnerbait box

-1 3600 for all my topwater

-1 3600 for all terminal tackle

-1 3600 for whatever

The backpack can store 8 3600s so I don't use all of them and use the rest of the area to put soft plastics. There are also pockets on the flap of the backpack and All my ragetail stuff goes in there. I thought about putting my plastics into 3600 boxes, but since i mainly am a bank fisher/kayak angler now, I just load up my satchel with several bags of plastics, my box of terminal and one box filled with miscellaneous lures.

[crankbait2009]

For those that store their softplastics in the original bags and then placed on a pegboard with hooks.........when you have so many, how do you determine what goes out on the water with you each time? Or do you end up taking everything?

I use a very small tote with all my plastics in the original bags, so that way they are always with me and I don't have to worry about the "crap, i left it at home"

[logan9209]

crankbait2009, for some reason I have a hard time breaking away from soft plastics. Not saying I've mastered them, but I know that on a hard day I can always pull out 1 or 2 bass with them. So, I tend to bring all of them with me and then have just one plano3600 filled with the hard baits that I might practice with if I have time (spinnerbaits are my bane).

[tpsneaks18]

I guess this shows some of us are more into soft plastics than others...the people who've said they store their plastics out of their bags in 3600 or 3700 boxes---U obviously can't have a HUGE assortment of plastics or I'd imagine it'd be absolutely impossible to store them this way...The amount of plastics I have...I'd need at least 20-25 3700 tackle boxes to store them out of their bags in sectioned off portions of a 3700 box... My hardbaits have always required one tackle bag...4 3700's- Topwaters, lipless/deepdivers, medium divers/shallow divers, chatterbaits/buzzbaits...n then a special double tiered box about the size of a 3600 but double-sided filled w/ jigs. Then I have an ENTIRE other bag for my soft plastics...either the giant stowaway box, or an empty tackle bag if its a tournament.

[logan9209]

tpsneaks18, I bank fish and I walk to where I'm going. Due to health issues even if I had that much, I couldn't carry it. I would love to be able to carry all I have. I hate getting to a spot and decide to fish with something different just to realize that I had preplanned not to bring that particular tackle box with me. But sometimes, you just have to go with the flow.

[SirSnookalot]

Organization is one thing and what I take with me on an outing is something else. When F.W. fishing I take no more than 4 or 5 different kinds of lures and if I suspect I may run into some vegetation I'll take some sort of soft plastic to rig weedless, everything fists nicely in my pockets, 1 rod. My SW gear is kept in my trunk in small boxes, 1 each for lures, jigs, spoons and some misc stuff. I use a good sized fanny pack with closeable lure boxes, more than enough tackle for any inshore outing I may do, as rule 2-3 rods. A lost lure is usually replaced on the way home from fishing.

My gear at home is in on a couple of small shelves and a storage bin with drawers. Not too neat, but since I know where everything is, I guess I'd call it organized. I have around 20 or so combos, that hang vertical from a wall in my garage.

[logan9209]

Speaking of which...This might be suited for a different post but since we're talking about organizing. Z-Man soft plastics absolutely can not be stored next to any other soft plastics. I learned this the hard way. I bought one of their chatterbaits with a split tail grub on it. I put the lure with my other jigs. In no time at all the grub part shriveled to nothing. It can be stored out of the bag, but just not with soft plastics. I'm not sure if putting a Z-man lizard and a Z-Man saw tail worm together would have the same effect, but I will leave that research for someone else.