Contributed by Daryl Boyd
Tackle storage, specifically soft baits, has baffled me since I started fishing from a kayak. Rod storage is good. I have two stored horizontally behind me in rod holders and usually one or two up front with me. If necessary, I have vertical storage on my BlackPak. Fish finder is mounted on a track with a quick release RAM Mount. Perfect. Pliers and line cutter on my PFD for easy access. Fish gripper and net within easy reach. No problem. My tackle trays are stored inside my BlackPak with the exception of my terminal tackle box which may be under my seat. But I can’t seem to settle on a system of storing soft plastics.
My first method was the wallet type tackle bag. You know, the soft sided “worm wrap” bag with the plastic pages. The good is that it is very compact and pretty easy to use. The negative, for me anyway, was that I wanted to bring so many baits I overstuffed the bag which made it difficult to sort through. I also found that the smaller bags required that I remove the baits from their packaging to keep it from getting too bulky.
Then I moved on to the gallon sized freezer bag system. This is a very complex system by which each freezer bag holds a specific category of bait. For example, worm, creature, swim, jerk, etc. Each bag is labeled by writing the associated category on the outside with a sharpie. High level stuff here. The positives to this approach was I could bring a lot more plastics…. which I guess could also considered to be one of the negatives. They took up a lot of space and I usually ended up with them all over the kayak. Consequently, I always seemed to get water inside the bags so I would have to empty them to let them dry out after every trip.
Then I moved on to the worm bag or speed bag system. This approach involves a similar complicated cataloguing process by which each bag contains a category and the name of the category is written on the outside. I made the mistake of using the system before I had labeled the bags once. Don’t do that. Anyway, it is more compact than the freezer bag system. They really do hold a lot of baits. So I can still carry way too many baits and not take up too much space in the BlackPak. The idea was that I simply grab the bag I need and keep it up front with me. I normally have two different presentations up front so I may have two bags at a time with me. Not totally different than the freezer bag approach but it seems to be a more compact system. Liked this system the best so far but it still isn’t perfect.
So now I am using a hybrid system. I am using the worm bags so I can bring a lot of baits. But I am also carrying the wallet bag so I can keep a sampling of each type of bait in the colors I use most up front with me. I have a dozen pages in that bag and it holds a fair amount so I am usually pretty good like that. But if I decide I want to use that Diamond Tail worm or a color that I don’t use much, I can still get in the BlackPak and get it.
So that’s my system …………………………… for now. Hopefully I have given you some useful ideas that may help solve your tackle storage challenges or maybe I have caused you to doubt your current system and you now have to run out and buy all new gear for your soft plastics. Hey, it’s good for the economy. And check over at Hook 1, Kayak Fishing Gear. They may have just what you need.