Post
by edwelch1 » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:18 am
I don't really have a fishing closet, because I decided to set myself up with basically all new gear this year, finally getting away from using all of my dad's stuff that's in boxes on shelves in the garage at the cabin, and I went for a min/max approach. In other words, tried to minimize my footprint while maximizing my variety for the fishing that I do most, as well as maximizing my mobility.
I wanted to be able to bring my essentials with me anywhere with ease, yet still have a good arsenal at my disposal. 99% of the time I'm going after walleye or panfish from my dad's or my boat, or from the dock at the cabin, sometimes out with a buddy in their boat, so I wanted to make my setup extremely mobile. 99% of that 99% is done using 1/32-1/4oz ball head jigs vertically jigging/a slow jigging retrieve, or slip bobber fishing. So, I pretty much set myself up with all new tackle for that, as well as a bunch of plastics, because I challenged myself to a full year of using artificial baits (haven't been skunked yet this year [knock on wood], and I've been competitive with my buddies/dad using live bait, so success so far!).
For organization I was able to fit everything into just two Plano Weekend Series 3500 Tackle Bags, one for tackle, one for baits. Each bag holds five 3500 trays, and the 3 zippered pockets are filled to the brim, as well as the one large mesh exterior pocket on each bag.
Tackle Bag Trays:
1. VMC Neon Moon Eye Jigs, in 1/32, 1/16, and 1/8oz, as well as some 1/8oz Clam Drop Tg jigs, 1/10oz Z-Man Finesse Shroomz, and some experimental tungsten jigs I'm toying with making myself (because buying them is too expensive for how snaggy my lakes are, lol). Also holds swivels and snap swivels.
2. Fireball jigs in assorted colors, 1/32, 1/16, and 1/8 oz.
3. Fireball jigs in assorted colors, 1/4 and 3/8oz.
4. Assorted crappie FluFlu/Marabou jigs, little Mepps Aglia inline spinners, and a couple of tiny Rapalas (bluegills have been nailing the little silver/black size 04 X-Rap!)
5. Slip Bobber tackle, including bobbers, bobber stops, beads, swivels, split shot sinkers, and hooks
Tackle Bag Pockets:
Rapala Pliers, lanyard with nippers/UV light/eye punch, Rapala line scissors, small fillet knife, side cutters, leatherman, gel superglue, Seaguar 8lb and 4lb Blue Label Leader Material, Yo-Zuri 8lb Fluoro Leader Material, small spool of Maxima Chameleon 6lb mono for leader material, Rub-away stainless steel bar "soap" (for getting northern pike slime off my hands), hand sanitizer, BaitMate Flip&Dip tub in Tournament Strength with Garlic, Aux cord/bluetooth receiver/remote for my boat stereo.
Bait Bag Trays:
1. Bobby Garland Baby Shads
2. Bobby Garland Mo'Glo Baby Shads
3. Berkley 2" Ripple Shads, Powerbait 2" minnows, Lake Fork Baby Shads, some tiny 1" white curly tail grubs and some other little 1.5" white crappie plastics that I forget the brands/names of currently.
4. Berkley 3" Ripple Shads, Impulse 3" Live Paddle Minnows, Lunkerhunt 3" Leeches (been pretty hot so far!), BioSpawn 4.5" Plasmatail in black/blue, Strike King 3" Baby Z-Too Minnows
5. Z-Man Finesse TRDs (just added these, looking forward to seeing if walleye will hit them), and space for overflow/used plastics
Bait Bag Pockets:
Gulp 5" Leeches in a small mason jar, Gulp pinched crawlers, Gulp chartreuse 1.5" Minnows, Gulp red Angleworms, Powerbait Power Honey Worms in yellow and natural, Powerbait chartreuse Crappie Nibbles, Bobby Garland Mo'Glo Slab Jam, Atlas Mike's UV Gel Scent in Anise/Garlic Nightcrawler/Walleye scents, Atlas Mike's Lunker Lotion in Walleye scent, 1.5cc syringe with blunt needle for scent application, and a stringer that was my grandpa's.
As for rods/reels, I only have 2 rigs, but they cover all of my bases for that 99% of my fishing. I have a 6'10" GL2 DSR that was my old primary, with a Pfleuger Patriarch 25 on it. That's now my backup, or used when I'm fishing the 1/4 or 3/8oz jigs. My new rig that I picked up this spring is a Legend Elite Panfish 6'4" Light Extra Fast, with a Daiwa Tatula LT 1000. I've been loving that for the lighter weight fishing that I'm doing, and it has been proving extremely capable. Over this next winter I'm hoping to replace the GL2 by custom building on a Phenix K2 blank with titanium torzite guides, but otherwise I'm really happy with my 2 rigs as they are.
Overall, it doesn't matter much where I keep my stuff, because it's such a compact package. 2 small bags and 2 rods doesn't take up much space, and it covers 99% of my fishing. Half the time the bags are sitting on my kitchen table and the rods are hung across the antlers of my whitetail shoulder mount I have on my wall, the other half of the time my stuff is in the back of my Tahoe in the garage ready to go for the next trip. Min/maxing has worked out very well for me so far, as it keeps me very flexible, only having to grab the couple of bags and couple of rods in order to bring pretty much all of my gear along wherever I'm headed. I'm sure over time I'll cycle some baits out of the trays as I find that I don't like them, or I just want to try new ones, but for right now I still have a ton to experiment with before thinking about adding anything more. Whenever that happens, I'll just grab more 3500 trays to keep on a shelf in a closet somewhere and just cycle through trays that I want to bring along.
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