Organization for it all

For a first posting, this is a fairly large topic to tackle so here it goes ...

One thing every fisherman can relate to is having too much tackle (even though we feel like its never enough). The key to it all is proper management and organization making it is easy to find what you need/want for your next trip and even more importantly when you are already out on the water. Not having a house yet, I can't easily set up a pegboard in the basement or garage for all my spare lures and bags of plastics, so I have to rely on my 3 tackle boxes and other storage methods to hold everything, for now. I have 3 tackle boxes, 2 that are full of lures and 1 with 2 full boxes and a little bit of open real estate for 2 3700 boxes i can swap in and out (more on that in the next posting); plus my wife's 2 tackle bags but that's another topic entirely. My first box is a big tackle bag holding 8 standard 3700 boxes, some smaller boxes, plus room for other stuff in the side pouches. Second box is my pond box which is like a mini version of the first one but only has 3 small boxes plus room for hooks weights & some plastics and to make it all fit I cut out things that are not feasible to fish from shore. Third box is set up with a 3620 box holding all my terminal tackle and a 3700 confidence box of baits to fish year round in IL. The rest of my extra lures and plastics had to find a way to be stored in as small of a space as possible while still being quickly accessible. But not everything fits into those three boxes, so where does the rest of it go?

**TIP #1 Invest in additional storage **

For me, investing in a few extra 3700 plano boxes to hold additional copies of lures to replenish my stock in my tackle bags was perfect. Then to store those neatly, I found a couple basic plastic crates from either target or walmart for about $5. Next organization was for all my bags of plastics. I broke them down into styles and put them into gallon ziplocs labeled via sharpie and all of those rest inside a Plano 7080 storage box.

** TIP #2 Label makers are your best friend! **

All of my plano boxes in my tackle bags and in the storage crates have labels with their contents on whatever side will be visible. Inside my crankbait box, I also use the labeler to mark how deep each crank runs. In my Jig box, it tells me how heavy each jig is. Speeding up the process of selection and allowing me to get fishing faster. The extra 4700 boxes of lures also have their own labels telling me exactly what is in each one.

** TIP #3 Make a spreadsheet of your rods **

It may not seem like a great organization strategy but knowing the rod information of what each rod has on it for line and your intended techniques for that rod will help you to quickly pick out what rods to bring for a trip or which ones need maintenance.

My spreadsheet includes Rod name / Length & Action / Type / Reel name / Gear Ratio / Line type / Line name / Line Poundage / Rod Technique

** TIP #4 Do your off the water homework!! **

This step will help you in so many ways. Do your background reading about a particular body of water. Look at articles about productive lures, look at old tournament reports, check DNR stocking reports, and obviously lake maps (multiple if you can find them). These will tell you what might be the dominant technique or at least a staple technique that you bring with you for a given season. If you are a tournament fisherman, it will tell you the required weights to win on that body of water, were they targeting largemouths, smallmouths, or spots? Looking for multiple lake maps may offer different information for the body of water. One map might not show that tiny stump field in the middle of the big flat while another one does. Make a folder for your information from each lake and start a log of your trips there. Easiest way to log your trips, I found, is to print out the weather report for your area, and use the backside of that page to make your lake notes. Then you have the air temp, humidity, barometric pressures, cloudiness and all your notes of what you tried and what worked or didn’t. If you are not on a boat to that has electronics that measure surface temp, I use a simple IR temperature gauge to take a reading of the surface temps. This will allow you to see what lures/presentations worked on any given day for the conditions (water, air, etc.) and better decide what lures to bring with you to the lake or river to be successful. All details that will help you to streamline your fishing tackle and choose better locations on the water.

Well, I hope those are a good jumping off point to get you started with organizing your tackle. Not everything I do is going to work for every angler, and I'm sure there are other tips and tricks that others use. I will get into more about my gear, setups, tackle, and other tips in the future postings. Until next time, best of luck on the water!!