We’re always asked about how we store our tackle, how to manage all the tackle in portable ways for when you have to go from your Man Cave to your portable Man Cave on the water, or even worse, fish out of the back of a buddy’s boat. We’ve tried a lot of options, but Plano Stowaway boxes are the still the best way to store tackle by bait type. But when you accumulate tackle over 20 years, you tend to have 20, 30, 40 or even more Plano Stowaways filled to the brim with tackle.
Obviously you don’t want to carry 40 Plano boxes with you from one boat to another or even from your shop out to the driveway to fill your boat. Then if you travel as a fisherman, you want to have a lot of tackle on hand at your disposal but maybe not in the boat, weighing it down. So what is the solution? Well, we’ve come up with a system that might help.
It’s basically three fold for us. One is we need a way to carry various sized Plano Stowaways, FTO, and Speed Bags in our tow vehicle and make it easy to get the tackle back and forth to the boat. Then we need bulk boxes of baits until we figure out what and how we’ll be fishing. And then we want to have the most productive baits easily at our fingertips when we’re on the water fishing so we’re not fighting tackle when we should be fishing.
- So basically, the first component I picked up was the Plano XXL Storage Trunk. Credit goes to Todd who credits Plano prostaff angler Joe Balog for turning him on to the trunk. Now we all own several. Balog uses his for fishing and duck hunting. Todd and I have been using them for tackle and other truck storage items. What’s nice is the trunk is light, holds a bunch of Plano Stowaways and it even has wheels in case you really load it down with tackle to take to from the shop to the truck or truck to the boat. It’s nice to be able to just pile all my boxes in there, carry out to the truck and unload in the boat later.
- The next piece of our storage system is a bunch of Plano 3700 Stowaway Pro Latch boxes. These are perfect for storing a lot of hardbaits and plastics in bulk. We can store baits by category and size and keep a lot of options on hand. The 2-3700 is my personal favorite although I do have a few 2-3730 boxes for stowing big crankbaits and bulk plastics.
- The final component of our three-pronged approach to mobile / travel tackle storage is Plano Elite Storage Boxes. These boxes are made to store less tackle but do it very organized with the hooks for the most part separated from the baits through the use of slotted trays where the hooks tuck under the next tray. These work great once you figure out a series of baits or colors that are working on a certain trip for creating day boxes where you can easily get more baits, or change up colors and sizes of a certain bait. The boxes are a little more expensive but do a great job of keeping your tackle easy to reach.
One final component we add is the Plano FTO Elite Speed Bag. We store plastics in bulk containers, but we can load a few speed bags with a bunch of certain baits we know are working. For instance, if I’m on Guntersville when the grass is thick and the air is warm, then I’ll have a bunch of Zoom Horny Toads as well as several different punching plastics like Big Bite Yo Daddy’s, Reaction Innovation Sweet Beavers and Berkley Chigger Craws. I can load a speed bag for bulk, or I can make it more of a day bag with just the plastics I’m using on a trip. Thus reducing my weight on the water and keeping my boat’s MPG at a maximum.
We’d love to hear if you’re an FTO type storage angler or a bulk Plano Stowaway type angler and as always we’d love to hear your ideas on how to keep your tackle organized while traveling.
