If you fish from small boats or kayaks, tackle management is a major problem that you can solve with a few easy tips.
Defang your crankbaits
Crankbaits are effective for catching different species of fish in the summer, but their tendency to tangle with each other is maddening, especially at night when darkness makes them harder to untangle.
You can solve that problem with crankbaits that have two treble hooks by using small rubber bands. Angle the hooks toward each other and tie them together with a rubber band. This prevents hooks from different baits intermingling.
With this method, I can cram a peanut butter jar full, and I can pick them out one at a time. This is especially valuable in a kayak, where space is extremely tight.
Defang your hooks
Like treble hooks on crankbaits, bream hooks and crappie hooks can form an impenetrable mass inside a Plano box, but you can tame that tiger with a simple diaper pin or safety pin.
Slide several hooks onto the pin and close it. That will keep the barbs and bends separate and allow you to access hooks one at a time.
Velcro Fly
In open-hull boats, like War Eagles and other aluminum designs, you can convert the inner hull as a tackle management platform with Velcro.
If you have baits that you use more than others, like certain styles or types of swimbaits, segregate them into small boxes. Crappie anglers can usually put their most commonly used jigs, tubes and plastics into one or two boxes.
Attach a strip of heavy duty Velcro to the interior hull and to the bottom of your bait boxes. Stick them to the hull, accessible but out of the way, so you can reach them without rummaging around in compartments. That will reduce noise, always desirable for night fishing.
Pre-rig rods
Anglers in small boats and kayaks don't have enough space to take 15 different rod and reel combinations, so limit your gear to basic applications.
I usually take three rods. One is a heavy or medium-heavy rig for fishing jigs, worms and other bottom-contact baits. I have another for topwater lures and buzzbaits and a third for crankbaits and spinnerbaits.
These are pre-rigged to prevent indecision and overthinking. I simply use the one that has the kind of bait I want for the moment, and I don't cross-pollinate baits and rigs. The topwater rig is always a topwater rig, and the crankbait rig is always a crankbait rig.
That system is overly simple by today's highly specialized standards, but it works.
Sports on 07/10/2016