Being organized allows you to know what baits you have and what you are out of so you won’t have any surprises when you’re out on the water. You want to spend as much time as you can fishing and the least amount of time looking for baits. I usually keep the same tackle regimen whether I’m at home, staying at the hotel or out in the water.

I like to break my tackle down into lure types such as medium diving crankbaits or deep crankbaits or jerk baits. That way I don’t have to carry everything in the boat all day long. For storing hard baits in the boat I use the Plano 3700 utility boxes. I try to keep two of each lure in various sizes and colours in my boxes and store my hard baits in the front of the boat.

Spinnerbaits and buzzbaits are stored in canvas soft-side packs unless I only want to take only 10 to 15 out on the water. In that case, I store the blade baits in a Plano FTO spinnerbait box. I keeps my weights and hooks in separate Plano 3670 boxes. In my weight box, I carry sinkers of various weights and styles along with beads and swivels.

My hook box consists of 1/0 to 5/0 extra wide gap and round bend hooks with about 10 of each size in separate compartments. Keeping my soft plastics in the original packages. I also separate the baits into types and store the packs in Plano 3731 boxes. I try to carry about six to eight colours of soft plastics during a tournament and store about two packages of each colour in my boat. Keeping track of lost baits is a key to good tackle management. If I lose something throughout the day, I make a mental note of it and try to replace it as soon as I get off the water at the store. I also keep my emptied soft plastics packages cause at the end of the day, I have all the empty bags, and I know what I need to replace in the boat.