43
Tweaking my tackle system
My winter tackle chores will continue this weekend as I sift and sort through the chaos that accumulated during my blitz through the 2016 fishing season.
As any angler will tell you, a busy day on the water can turn a perfectly organized tackle compartment into a rat’s nest. Multiply that by the 50 or so days I fish each year and you begin to imagine the mountain I must climb to be prepared for ice-out.
Every fisher has a personal approach when it comes to packing lures and terminal tackle. My system has evolved over the past couple of decades. I see no need to re-invent my approach, but I do benefit from annual tweaks.
This winter, my tackle tinkering is geared entirely around efficiency. I have learned from competitive fishing that saved seconds translate into precious minutes that can add another bass and extra pounds to my score at the end of a tournament day.
My system may work for you, but chances are the best system for you is one that you develop yourself. Just as fishing is a pursuit that develops as anglers learn and evolve, so, too, will your tackle system benefit from changes that are a result of your experiences.
For example, I used to take way too many lures to the lake. I still haul too much, but it’s probably a third of what I took to the water 10 years ago. My decision to resist toting nearly every color and size of every style of lure has saved a lot of weight and space.
Recently I have benefited from combining multiple boxes of lures into one.
In days gone by, I would take a box with deep-diving crankbaits, another with medium-divers and a third with shallow-running cranks. I also had a fourth box that was exclusively for balsa- and cedar-body plugs.
This spring, I will have one box for all four varieties. I have dramatically reduced the options in terms of colors and sizes. The one crankbait box is the only one I must grab when I’ve decided I am going to tie on a wiggling hard-body bait.
Experience is such a valuable aid if you just listen to what it’s saying.
My experience is that whenever I wanted to cast a crankbait, I always resorted to one of just three options. I determined that I didn’t need 100 baits if I only used three. Reducing the options also eliminates the temptation to experiment.
After more than three decades of reducing the number (and pounds) of lures I take to the lake, my winter tackle work now is more about refining my system for keeping them organized in a way that makes them easy to locate.
This spring, the BassCat will be loaded with one box of crankbaits, one box of spinnerbaits and one box of jigs. I now lug three boxes when formerly I took nine.
Soft plastics are bass anglers’ candy. It is very difficult to resist loading up on plastic worms, craws, creatures, lizards, stickbaits, paddle-tail swimbaits and more. Factor in the temptation of all the pretty colors and the poundage potential grows exponentially.
But try as I might, I can only fish one plastic bait at a time. I also have come to terms with the reality that even though they all might be productive, I have supreme confidence in a few. So why take them all?
My plastics are stored aboard the boat in their original bags, for optimum identification, and those are bundled in gallon-size zip-lock bags. Two of these are all I need to cover just about any condition on the lake. For special situations, like those on Lake Erie, I have bags stocked expressly for that water.
Reducing the options, consolidating the storage and clearly identifying boxes’ and bags’ contents have added a lot of hours to my actual fishing time.
In my book, the more hours I fish, the better.