When it's time to go fishing, you want clear sailing, including favorable weather and no boats on your favorite spot. You also want your tackle to work flawlessly. While a drop of oil, a dab of grease, and a spool filled with fresh line will get your rods and reels ready, your tackle will need a bit more attention.
Gear checks aren’t only for anglers waiting on ice to leave their local lakes. They also help prepare those whose fishing has been sidelined by summer heat, waiting for the arrival of autumn's cool breezes. Whatever the reason, you'll be glad you invested the time when you’re ready to hit the water again.
Spending this time off the water accomplishes a couple of things. First, it protects your purchases. No matter how much you have, tackle is a financial investment in good times. And you'll cash in on more of them when yours is ready. It also makes you more efficient on the water. Stopping to change a hook or search endlessly for the lure you need during a hot bite is frustrating; you won't catch any fumbling inside tackle storage.
Tackle takes a lot of abuse, from running into cover and structure during retrieves to bouncing off objects on errant casts. The bass take a bite out of it, too. Sandpaper-like lips rough up hard baits and tear apart soft-plastic ones. And strong surges, especially from smallmouth, have opened the gap on countless hooks. So, it's essential to periodically review your tackle, looking for issues and repairing them. Here are three steps to get that done.
Check Them
Start with your hard baits' split rings. Sometimes, there's one at the line tie, and more often, they connect treble hooks to a lure’s body. Make sure each is round — unless they’re the unique oval design — and both wraps are concentric. Replace any that are misshapen or slightly pulled open.
While split rings can’t be repaired, single and treble hooks in good condition can be revamped with a few passes of a fine file. Run it along the top and down each side, working toward the point. That creates a super sharp point, which penetrates quickly, and three cutting edges, which help the hook sink past its barb. You’ll know the point is sharp when you drag it across your fingernail, and it sticks.
Some hooks will be beyond repair, whether bent, broken, or rusted. Avoid attempting to return a bent hook to its original shape. Repeated bending creates a weak spot, leading to failure. Some hooks, including ones chemically sharpened or sporting a conical point, are difficult, if not impossible, to sharpen. It's best to replace these with a similar hook; a different size or material changes weight, affecting lure action. Purchasing a decent pair of split-ring pliers — small tip and spring-loaded handle — will make the job easier.
Crankbaits aren’t the only lure type that needs review. Check your spinnerbaits, too. Ensure the swivel connected to the trailing blade spins freely. Straighten any wire frames that are bent so it tracks true. Check the hook's point, see if it's bent or broken, and do the same for all trailer hooks. Replace skirts with cracked or stretched collars. Follow a similar process of appropriate checks with your vibrating jigs. Your traditional jigs should receive similar care. Trim the skirts and thin weed guards — cutting them shorter makes them stiffer — on new jigs before adding them to your tackle box.
Some anglers are particular about soft plastics, discarding any that are kinked for fear they won’t produce. Some can be straightened by spending time in the sun or hot water. Look through yours, ensuring they lay as straight and flat as possible in storage. The same goes for their appendages.
Clean Them
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Scuffs and scratches are found on the most productive lures. While they don’t hurt plastic lures, reseal those on wood ones. They can expose the lure to water, ruining it. Photo by Pete M. Anderson Sometimes, lures aren't treated well after use. We've all thrown odd lures into a boat's cupholder when hastily preparing for a run down the lake or the drive home. And the chances are good that most stay there for several more trips. That abuse can lead to metal rusting and paint scratching. Removing that and other issues makes them water-ready again.
It seems odd to consider cleaning something that spends so much time in water. If you fish a lure long enough, it’ll clean itself. But that’s not a good use of precious fishing time. So, take time to make sure your tackle looks good, too. Older lures will benefit from a scrubbing from an old toothbrush and a paste of water and baking soda. Scrub them until they shine. The exact process will remove dried-on aquatic vegetation or mud.
Turn your attention to the line tie. While some sport split rings, others are a simple screw eye or formed within a wire frame. On the water, lure changes often leave knots and short lines attached. Remove these leftovers.
Scuffed paint is a badge of honor celebrating all the bass caught by a lure. It doesn't affect the performance of plastic hard baits; bass mostly react to their movements and flashes of color. So, keep casting them. If it bothers you, then make them candidates for repainting down the road. Scratched or cracked paint and coatings on wood lures open the door to damage by allowing in water. Repair these with a touch of epoxy or even clear nail polish.
Soft-plastic lures can’t be cleaned, but they can use extra attention to get ready to go fishing. One of the easiest things to do is add scent to their bags. That gives them time to marinate, soaking up the scent that'll be released when they hit the water.
Corral Them
Quickly finding the new lure you recently purchased or the stash of old standbys is paramount to fishing efficiency. You won’t catch anything while digging through tackle boxes and boat compartments. You need to find them fast and the first time.
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Organization is key to on-the-water efficiency. Group your hard baits by type, size, and color in a manner that makes sense to you and meets your needs. Place the same size, style, and color of soft-plastic lures in resealable plastic bags. Photo by Pete M. Anderson Hard and soft-plastic lures require different strategies for organization. Most hard baits, for example, sport treble hooks. They're best stored in rigid boxes, whether a traditional tray box or utility box with moveable dividers. Soft-plastic baits are best kept in resealable plastic bags, one style and color. Group them in larger resealable bags; one might have all your drop shot baits and one your creature baits. Some anglers store their soft plastic baits in utility boxes. That works for small ones and those without much-added scent, salt, or worm oil. Those easily disperse and are a challenge for most utility boxes to contain.
Once you decide what to store your tackle in, it's time to determine how you'll organize it. That must be tailored to you — what makes sense and meets your needs. Here are a few ways to get that done. Don’t focus on just one. Use several in a stair-step fashion that takes you directly to the lure you need.
- Type: This is the top level of organization. When you pick up a box or bag, you want it to contain crankbaits, jerkbaits, worms, or tubes, not a mix of the above and more. That's an easy first step to finding the lure that you need.
- Size: Once you’ve found where the lure you need is stored, you need to find the proper size. Crankbaits, for example, are easily sorted by diving depth and size. Your shallow runners, for example, may contain a Norman Little N and the smaller Bandit 100.
- Color: This is the final level of sorting. For example, you'll have smaller bags of drop shot worms inside your bag, each limited to one color. And that section of shallow-running crankbaits will have a row dedicated to crawfish, shad, and fire-tiger patterns.
We all have more tackle than we’ll use in a single fishing day, let alone a season. And we're all guilty of bringing way more than we need, whether that's backup bags of soft plastics or extra topwaters. Instead of jamming that all into your tackle bag or boat compartment, consider creating a go bag. Rotate boxes and bags of lures in and out as where and when you’re fishing changes. Something similar can be done with a boat compartment. Carrying only what you need frees you to concentrate on finding bass, which often is a bigger part of logging a successful day.
