It seems as though after every fishing expedition we all systematically wind up with piles and piles of discarded products, tangled together with unwanted colors bleeding all over our expensive baits, which eventually wind up in the trash. Soft plastics eating away at our crankbaits and spinnerbait hooks and skirts destroyed from drying improperly in the midst of the pile.
The next time that you're at a boat ramp, just casually walk by and look in the bottom of other anglers boats and they all seem to look the same. A MESS! With the cost of lures and other products on board our boats now days this can get very costly in a hurry.
In the heat of the moment we change baits and presentations as quickly as we change our minds and at the end of the day we have a very big, tangled and discarded mess in the bottom of our boats. If one were to actually add up the cost in that pile then we could all buy one of the neatest products out on the market today, The "Go To" Tackle Storage System by Cooks Tackle. This is the neatest tackle organizing system I've ever seen and can be installed in any boat in a matter of minutes.
One system is specifically designed for spinnerbaits and buzzbaits which is usually the first thing that I reach for when beginning the day. Once installed, all of your favorite spinnerbaits and buzzbaits will be right at your finger tips, visable, and ready at a moments notice. No more digging through the old spinnerbait box that has twice as many baits as it designed to hold and dragging out three tangled baits instead of one.
Come on, we all do it and the discarded baits get shoved right back into the cramped box of baits of which some just "caught our eye" in the store and have never even been tried.
The tackle system keeps them organized, visible and your baits are just as easy to put back in their place as they were to tie on. They also hang in such a way to allow the skirts and hooks to dry properly which gives you ten times the normal life of a spinnerbait that has been put up wet in the traditional boxes to only rust and stick the skirts together.
Today a quality spinnerbait or buzzbait will set you back on average say $7 to $10, and if one concludes that saving only two $10 baits will pay for the entire system plus simultaneously saving us another trip back to the tackle store then what a deal!
The super tough system will also hold your baits in place through nasty boat rides and are so simple to install that it's just nuts to not take advantage of some pretty smart cookies' forward thinking. One would have to think that the inventor was as tired as we are of the neverending digging and searching for items that we know darn well are on board.
The second tackle system is designed to hang and organize your soft plastics. This one will save you some serious dough. The packages all hang on hook rings in the order that you choose. You can also open your packages without removing the entire bag from the rack. Guess what? No more packages left on the floor to fly out of the boat on your next boat run! Immediate savings, $4.49 or more. Getting the picture?
I personally arrange mine from lighter to darker colors for ease of choice and with just a simple glance I can locate the exact bait that I have chosen as my next selection. Since thankfully they're still in my boat when I get to my next spot, I'm immediately ready to fish upon arrival. Multiple systems will also allow you to categorize your plastics into specific types such as tubes, worms, lizards etc.
Soft plastic baits account for well over 70 percent of the average angler's total purchases for the year. We're talking hundreds of dollars - per angler -per year and that is some quite substantial numbers when taking into consideration just how many millions of anglers there are in the US. If we could each save even one-fifth of that number per year then we would probably save enough money to pay for perhaps another entry into that one extra tournament that we wish to fish. Think about it. It's basically a free entry from our well calculated purchasing and we might even get some extra bucks back in our pocket if we do well in the event. Now that's a real deal.
When cleaning out my boat periodically I always find at least 10 packs of soft plastics which are half full and somehow found their way to a mystical hiding place in the storage locker which resulted in my opening another full pack to continue fishing. Now you can imagine, as a guide, that I carry enough baits and tackle on board for not one but three people every single day. Take the average mess and multiply by three and we're talking about an entire afternoon of digging, regrouping, and taking inventory in my storage lockers. Instead of doing that, I could have been out fishing or better preparing for a tournament.
Now the huge savings comes by way of using an entire pack of baits before we get into another and not thinking that we are out of baits which sends us back to the store again for what we already had under all that other mess.
Speaking of tournaments, just think how helpful this could be during practice day as we systematically go about our elimination of techniques and bait selections to finally wind up with what we now absolutely know that we're going to use in the competition. Everything that we intend to use is now already in its place, ready to go, and at our fingertips! No more digging with a flashlight at the boat ramp in the dark before the starting bell rings looking for what we have now already placed in order during our practice day. We're ready to go and can now concentrate on what we have chosen as our strategy for the day instead of wondering where and how many of those baits are on board. Rather than minutes to change baits or find another we can do so in seconds and the ever ticking clock during a tournament is our number one enemy when it comes to winning or losing tournaments.
I personally have never felt like that I lost a tournament because of it, but I sure ran out of time on plenty. In looking back, an extra 30 minutes of fishing on those days could very well have landed us the fish that would win the tournament and I guarantee you that I've never caught a fish while I was digging in my storage locker.
The next time you see a fellow angler flying down the lake with a spinnerbait hanging from his hat brim just follow him and show him your Cook's Original "Go To" Tackle System on board your boat. Then offer him your assistance and needle nose pliers to get the bait out of his hat!
One bait in the tackle system is worth two in the hat!
