Your Tackle, Where Is It?

If you bass fish very much, you will notice most of us are low grade hoarders when it comes to our tackle.  We seem to think we need 5 colors of Beavers just in case they are biting a different color that day.  But, how many times have you dug through your boat on tournament day trying to find that mythical bag of baits?  Then you have wasted precious tournament time digging instead of fishing.

I have my own personal system to keep my tackle as organized as possible.  I have a very simple saying for keeping my tackle management effective “if you don’t know where it is, you don’t have it”.

If crawl in your boat and ask you for a 10” worm or a swimbait, will you be able to tell me exactly where they are?  EXACTLY.

You can see from the pictures how I try to label all of my Plano Stowaways and my Plano Speed Bags.    Not only do I label them, but I try and keep the baits that I am currently using in the front boxes on my boat.  I will rotate other Plano Stowaways to the back boxes that are not applicable to the body of water I am fishing or the season I am fishing.

You will notice that I use white tape to label my Plano’s.  That is so if I want to swap out boxes, I don’t have something wrote on it that is incorrect.

I will always organize my Plano Speed bags to where they will stack in my storage compartments like match sticks.  If you just haphazardly pile them in, you will get less tackle in your boat, and not know where anything is.

Some people will organize their tackle from shallow to deep or vice versa.  Do what works for you, but make sure YOU know where your baits are.
Every time you stop and sit down and wonder, where is my new 6^th Sense Cloud 25 deep diving crankbait? You will start pulling out all of your gear on the deck looking like an episode of pickers, you know what you ain’t doing?  FISHING!?!?!

How many times have you wished for just 15 more minutes at the end of a tournament?  I know for me it has happened countless times.  A fast and simple way to spend less time digging and more time fishing is to keep your tackle organized.
It sounds rather simplistic doesn’t it?  BUT, we all have been guilty of throwing our gear in the boat and riding off looking like Fred Sanford with stuff piled up everywhere.

Another tip is to keeping your tackle in top operating condition.  What I mean by that is, if you notice a broke latch, zipper or other component, you need to fix it at home, NOT on the water.

As I said earlier, it sounds basic….but do you know where your stuff is?  Not, oh it is in the big box upfront.  Where in that box is it and which side is it on?  Those are the questions you need to be able to answer.

Plano makes anything and everything you need to organize your tackle to maximize your time on the water.  If your local tackle shop doesn’t have what you are looking for, go to their website and I promise you, it will blow you away at all of the possibilities for organizing and storing your tackle and gear.

http://www.planomolding.com/

Remember, time waits for no man.

Story by Shane Smith