Boat, Kayak, or Bank: Organize Your Tackle for Efficiency on the Water

If there’s one thing anglers love (besides hooking into big fish) it’s having a ton of tackle. You need a bunch of your tried and true favorites, but you also need some of the latest and greatest options on the market. While this is awesome, the downside many anglers experience is finding a way to actually keep it all organized so that they can be efficient while out on the water. 

There are a lot of different ways to go about organizing tackle. However, it all really comes down to where you’re organizing and how you plan on fishing when you hit the water.

Whether you’ve got a fishing room in your house or a spot in the garage, the first thing you need to do is keep your tackle at home as organized as possible. This is the best way to ensure you know where everything is and gives you the ability to easily pack what you need when you hit the water.

You can try organizing everything by the types of lures, the seasons you fish those lures in, the fish you go after, or whatever other system you can think of that makes sense to you. Probably the best piece of gear you can utilize in your system is going to be the tackle tray. These come in various sizes and are designed to hold your lures and other tackle in one spot. From there, it’s getting it all in bins, on the shelf, or wherever else you can store it in your fishing gear area.

When you’re fishing from a boat, you have the most flexibility in bringing a bunch of tackle with you. This is a good thing, since a boat is going to give you the most flexibility in where you can fish in your body of water. For example, if you’re going out bass fishing in the summer, you may need to bring your topwater box for the morning, and your deep diving crankbait box for the middle of the day.

Just because you have more flexibility doesn’t mean you can or should bring every single lure with you on the boat. It’s still important to think through how you plan to fish and bring tackle accordingly.

Kayak fishing is the middle of the road when it comes to flexibility in tackle. While you may have the ability to bring a few options with you, you won’t be able to bring as much as you would be able to on a boat. This makes it even more important to think through what you’re going to need when you’re out on the water.

Kayak fishing has also been evolving in recent years, with lots of cool pieces of gear that can help you increase and maximize the amount of storage you have with you. You can find bins and other storage items specifically made for kayak fishing that allow you to bring a few extra trays along with you. Additionally, a regular old milk crate can also be a great addition to give you some extra storage.

Bank fishing is going to be the most limited when it comes to tackle. When you’re fishing from the bank, you’re going to need to be mobile. Because of this, you can’t take every single option with you. You’ll need to really think through what’s going to work best on any given day you’re fishing and prepare accordingly.

However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Bank fishing is also going to limit the number of ways you can actually fish. While fishing from a boat or kayak lets you explore the water and hit different places, bank fishing only lets you hit limited areas that are fishable, which also limits the kinds of tackle you’ll actually need.

When you’re bank fishing, one of the best things you can bring with you is some sort of tackle bag or backpack. These can usually fit a few tackle trays in them, allowing you to bring the essentials while also enabling you to be as mobile as possible.