How do you organize your tackle?

At one time I had everything neatly organized by category, (crankbaits in one box, saltwater plastics, jigheads, lead, etc etc).  But I'm thinking it would be much better to organize by species, (Rockfish/Ling, Stripers, Trout, etc, with all the appropriate lead, rigging, etc included).

It seems no matter what I've tried so far it always takes me way too long to get my tackle situated, so this weekend I hope to get it all organized into grab-n-go packages.

What's your system, and how do you keep light stuff like pre-tied leaders neatly together with heavy crap like sinkers?

organized chaos is my SOP, but try to keep it to species, every winter it gets a whole new system that i just know will be better than the last seasons, but alas by the end its all over the place again, except this year since water time was very limited, cameron

that is how I do it. I use the hobie gear buckets but plano boxes (or whatever) would work. I have the following:

Rockfish = leadheads, plastics, shrimp flies, few hooks, weights swivels.
Bass = well you know ALL the stuff
Trout = same as bass - Lots o stuff
Bait = I use this as the general fishing bucket. Hooks, weights, hair raiser, few plastics, lead head, couple of hard plastic baits.
Salmon, butts and Dinos each have a small ziplock that is added to the "bait" bucket.

I can just grab the correct set of tackle and be off. Rarely do I mix species when going out.

I sort by size an type of lure i have stacks of boxes on a book shelf. Seems to work well. Just grab size for location/target species

I've always hadit sorted  by species. But was always in tackle boxes...big huge fliptop tackle boxes.
I've since broken those down to Plano trays and soft sided bags. Easier to mix and match the tackle for the day and season. Now that I have a yak to fish out of, I need to sort into a more general species trays, to slip in and out of my orange box in back of the yak. It's going to take some doing to learn to down size to fit that box. 

I've been using those flat plano trays for a while, ever since I got a soft sided case (after seeing how all the 'cool" guys on charter boats had them).

I'm kind of a mess when it comes to organizing stuff.
I have one plano tray that has a leash on it that I use for most of my kayak bottom fishing. I have another small one that holds live bait gear, sabikis, hooks and seabass stuff.

I have a trout tray, but I have yet to use anything in it!

You had to ask.
And this was before I had a lot of tackle. Now it's nuts.
I have two closets full, not just the one.

How do I WHAT my tackle???

How do I WHAT my tackle???

LOL!!!!

Good one.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Damn bigger fishing section then Walmart in there

Organized chaos for sure.  I've tried everything possible, and what's worked for me the past few years is a large 4 drawer filing cabinet (4' wide, 6' tall, 2' deep).  Bottom drawer gets all my rockfishing gear which is broken into Plano boxes (one of swimbaits, one of jigs/hex bars, etc.).  Also keep my wetsuit, bonker, game clip, ab irons, all the ocean stuff a valley guy like me doesn't get to use very much.  Next drawer up is all fly gear, along w/ waders/vest/boots.  Next drawer is all plano boxes, probably 20 of them.  Plastics, hard baits, spinners, tubes/zooks/flukes, weights, hooks...a box for everything labeled with general contents.  Next drawer is the common area.  I usually have one plano that goes with me everywhere, with an assortment of hooks/weights/spinners/worms/jigs.  With that one Plano I could hit trout/bass/panfish/harbor/bay action.  Also in the common drawer are my spools of line, a tupperware of all my packaged hooks, prepared baits (salmon eggs/powerbait/scents), stringers, knives, radios, pliers, lure making crap.  Gear for my target species of the month rides up in the common area, so right now all my salmon/steelie is readily available.  When it's time to fish, I grab my backpack and take the boxes i need and am off to the other shelves to grab fishfinder/battery/pfd/dry bag/etc.....all part of the madness, right? 

See Totes Post...  I used to have a lot of gear... Now I limit myself to 2 (big) soft side bags. Plano trays are the best. I get the size that will go into my milk crate and the rest gets left in the car (just in case I need MORE MORE MORE!!!!) I always overload the yak for fishing and Often look like a porcupine as I glide over the water with my 7-8 odd poles. The two bag limit keeps me under control as I enter the store knowing if it won't fit in the bag, it stays on the shelf Loosing stuff to snags is a happy/sad thing (can go buy stuff to replace it) Now if I can just figure out HOW TO STOP BUYING KAYAKS I'll be OK

Wow. Wow. (still looking through Tote's pictures)......

I use a fishing back-pack that contains plastic bins and smaller containers. It actually unzips in the middle, so it can down-size easily on-the-go. I have been trying to "pack" the bag according to what I am fishing for...but since I am still such a novice, it's more chaos than anything, haha.

Man Tote that is just awesome.

I keep two crates, with Plano boxes in each one. One for salmon, one for stripers. Easy peasey. 

And two totes full of stuff I go thru and organize and then mess up over and over.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've got a system a lot like Tote's. Labeled by species. When I go bass fishing, I grab the Bass tub and I'm gone. As you can imagine, my Bass bin is the biggest. On the inside of the bins i have the flat style flip top boxes from Harbor Freight. I get the plastic bins from Target. Tote, since it seems like you and I have the same style, I'd like to give you a friendly piece of advice. If you ever come across a place called "The Container Store" stay the hell out! That place is just as bad as walking into a tackle shop! It's hard to not buy organization stuff in there!