What's the Best Tackle Storage?
We’ll just state the obvious. Fishing for walleye is just plain fun. Thrilling and fast-paced, catching walleye means an angler has to be quick-thinking when it comes to fishing this predator. That’s why we asked walleye expert, Dale Gilbert, to share his extensive walleye knowledge with us. A walleye master, Dale, has fished walleye from Arkansas to Canada and Michigan to Montana, and he doesn’t disappoint.
It goes without saying that the more tackle you have, the more you need a great tackle storage system. And, being more organized means, you’ll have more time to fish. Watch and learn as walleye expert, Dale Gilbert shares his best tackle storage solutions.
Want to learn more tips & tricks about catching walleye? Click here to read more.
Video Transcription
Tackle Management, and Tackle Storage
Hey Folks! We're going to talk a little bit about tackle management, tackle storage, because frankly, that's one of the issues that I deal with every year and every year it seems to be a little bit bigger problem for me almost because it seems like every year I acquire a little more tackle, but it's one of those things that we all deal with and a real challenge. The more organized and more efficient you can be with your tackle storage, again, the more time you can actually spend fishing. I'm going to talk about some of the things I use and what I feel works best for me and hopefully it'll help you out here a little bit.
Bottom Bouncer Setup
I'm going to start and just show you a couple of things. This is actually from my boat. This is actual plain old 3,700 box. It's what they call their waterproof series, the red series. This is my bottom bouncer set up that I use in the boat and you'll see in there, there's a whole bunch of variety of different weights and then there's also a bunch of the actual bottom bouncer wires.
This makes for a real nice, neat system that keeps everything nice and organized and dry, which is really good because here's all my wires that fit in there and then these weights go anywhere from one ounce up to three ounces, in different colors so I can change them out. It's the best system I've found. I can put all these things in there, keep them nice, organized, clean and dry. That's one of the things. I also use the same system for a bunch of FinTech tech stick rigs that I use that are kind of like Lindy sinkers.
Jig Setup
My jigs. I have a whole pile of these plain old 3,600 series boxes that are sold at North 40 here like this. They got different dividers. You can kind of split up. This is my one that I use for my kits tackle glass jigs. I actually have these, I've got the Rick's jigs in one, I've got a couple of these with the kits tackle, the glass minnows. I've got these for my northland thumper jigs. I basically have one of these for every different style of jig that I like to use.
Then what I'll do is I'll separate the colors and also the sizes. I go from an eighth of a quarter to a three eights ounce, but again, it makes a real nice thing. Then what I typically do is you'll see that I label them like this. I put down kits glass jigs on there, so when I look into the storage compartments on my boat, I can grab the right box a whole lot easier.
Crank Bait Storage
The other thing that I found over the years that I use is the same plain old 3,700 box for my crank baits. You'll see here, this is one box of my number six, Berkley flicker shad, which is really one of my favorite crank baits. Again, you'll see I label it. It's kind of worn off a little bit you'll see here, but I've also written on what the color names are, so if I get to where I generally have three or four of each thing in each compartment, but if I get to run it down and I need to replace it, I can remember what the name of it is.
The other thing I could take a note here is actually pasted on the inside here, the diver charts to come off so you can actually... With this number six flicker shad, you can look here and say that if I want to get down with a fire line and I want to run 10 feet deep, that I would have to put out about 40 foot of line to be able to get that crank bait down to 40 foot. It makes for a real nice organized system for storing these things. The same thing, I'll label these, number six flicker shads with a permanent marker so that it makes it easy to grab the right box that I decide I want to use.
Setting up for Rigging Tails
Now for most of my other rigging tails, I actually use several of these Berkley little bags like this and I'll fill this up. One bag might have a whole pile of Berkley ripple shads in it. One of them might have my Keitech fat impacts. I use one of these for each different thing and the same thing, as I can label them so that I can see when I look into the storage in the boat, that this one has my ripple shads in it. That makes for a real nice system, keeping things organized and easy to find.
Now, if I'm using the Berkley Gulp alive, which has got the solution to it, I use a number of these things like this, that I'll put into another container, but I'll fill... Even when I take out of those bags and dump it into one of these that's got that Gulp Alive solution and let it just soak in there and that makes it more effective as far as catching fish. Then just take the top off and grab whatever tail that I want. I generally do that by size. I'll put four inch in one and three inch in one and two and a half inch in the other. Then I've got probably half a dozen of these in another basic storage compartment bay and just stack them in there so I can grab what I want. That works really, really well.
How to Store the Little Things
The other thing that I like to use a lot for little things were these Maxler pips boxes and what I'll do with these and you can see and in this case I've tied up some Phelps floaters here. What I like about these is I can tie up several of these, stick them in there with a leader, tie it onto them and basically what you do is you just grab it and then just pull the leader out. They're all pre-tied so I don't have to be messing around when I'm out there in the boat, trying to catch fish, to actually tie all of these things up because they're kind of a pain to tie up, a little bit.
What I do then when I want to change is I'll just take this and again, you'll see this has got about a three foot leader on it. There's no nod or whatever, so I can adjust my length, but you'll stick this back in a little cork that's inside that box, stick the hook in there, lay the line down in the little slot that's here. The lid has a little key to it. You just put that key and then you just twist it up. It's a really neat system it's actually designed for, I think the salmon fishermen and the steelhead fishermen out west, but I found that it works really, really well for keeping a number of things like this really organized and put together. You'll see, I do that and I'll use different colors and some more Phelps floaters there.
Fill the Compartment with Different Color Tails
The other thing I like to use, again for tails, would be like the Berkley bag like this. This is real similar to what I use for my tackle tamers. This is the compartment where you can actually fill these with different color tails as well. Again, keep them nice and neat and organized and easy to find, which makes my life a lot simpler and I like it a lot nicer. This right here is my tangle tamer with all my pre-tied Snells. It's one of my favorite ways to organize these kinds of things.
Again, you can kind of see that I tie up a variety of different combinations and I put them in these little pocket, plastic sleeves like this, so that I can sort through here. There's gold and orange and little spinning glows. You can do whatever you want to your imagination. These are some lollipops here, which are a maxillary, which are really, really good at times. It's amazing fish I've caught on those things.
Here's some chartreuse and silver colors. Again, it's limitless, what you want to do. These are some of my slow death rigs right here and what I really like about these things and why it makes it so easy. If I pull one of these out of the compartment and you'll notice from, we talked earlier, there's my little barrel swivel on there. You pull this out and you just kind of let it swing down and it all unravels nice and neat. It's by far the best system I've found for keeping things organized. Then I just have to remove my hook and I'm ready to tie it on and go fishing.
Organize to Put Fish in the Boat
Whatever you can do to simplify your life and organize things in a boat and it seems like, for me anyways, it doesn't seem like I can buy a big enough boat to haul all the tackle that I want, but I imagine I get it filled up pretty much every year. It's really nice to have things organized in a place where I can find him and something that's quick and easy to get out and use so that I am willing to be a little more flexible and experiment a little bit, give the fish, a little bit of a choice as to tell me what it is they really like and I can guarantee you, that's going to put a few more fish in your boat.
If you've got any questions or need any further information, just stop by any of the North 40 Outfitters stores or check the website north40.com. Thanks for watching and hope to see you again. Thanks.