All bass fishing crankbaits have a tendency to tangle up and damage one another when simply tossed into a tackle box. This makes storing crankbaits a bit cumbersome; especially the larger ones. If you’re using a basic box, there’s always the threat of moisture ruining a whole bunch of baits with rust and corrosion.
This means an angler could be out hundreds of dollars worth of baits in a hurry, so you need to be pretty particular about how you store your crankbaits. If you’ve run into some of these issues, we’re here to help. Here are four cool ways to store crankbaits of all sizes.
Bass Mafia Cranking Coffin
There are two crankbait storage solutions I want to mention from Bass Mafia—one box that’s still available and another that’s been discontinued.
I purchased this box (now discontinued) about 5 or 6 years ago when I first started getting more into deep cranking. I was frustrated with several of the issues I’ve already laid out and this box seemed to offer a solution to many of them.
Though the Cranking Coffin has been discontinued, you can likely still find a used or even a new one online. It’s worth mentioning still because it has effectively stored, organized and preserved hundreds of dollars worth of baits for me over the years.
The primary enemy when it comes to storing any bait is water. Corrosion and rust from water will ruin a bait or even a whole box of baits. Bass Mafia incorporated a quality seal with the Cranking Coffin to ensure that no water gets into this box. The only thing you have to be careful with here is that you have to make sure your baits are dry before you put them up.
In the Cranking Coffin, there are 44 individual bait compartments. The slots are deep enough to store big, deep-diving crankbaits which makes this a great box for storing most of your plugs.
Bass Mafia Bait Coffin 3700DD
The second Bass Mafia box I want to talk about is the 3700DD. This box has 48 configurable slots. The three black walls are fixed but all the red dividers can be removed. This box also has a waterproof seal, stainless steel hinges, firm clasps and a honeycomb construction that makes it virtually indestructible, the same as the Cranking Coffin.
But the 3700DD is a little shallower than the Cranking Coffin. So this box is great for anything from a Strike King 5XD down to squarebills and lipless crankbaits. If you want to store larger crankbaits in the 3700DD though, you can remove one or multiples of the red dividers to create larger cavities for bigger baits.
Flambeau Zerust Max Crank Bank
This is a box that I am more than impressed by. It again has a waterproof seal and a super strong structure. The material the box is made of is actually impregnated with Flambeau’s Zerust VCI vapor technology, which prevents rusting and corrosion. I have owned several of Flambeau’s products that use this Zerust system and they do a fantastic job of preserving lures.
One thing I really like about this box in particular, is that the compartments all slide in and out individually. This makes it very easy to pull a sleeve out and dump the lure into your hand, as opposed to grabbing the bait and pulling it out, which decreases the chances of hooking yourself.
There’s a heavy-duty silicone gasket that pairs up with three compression cam latches to seal the box up tight, making it waterproof to the max.
Read our full review here: Flambeau Zerust Max Crank Bank
Deep 3700-size storage box and hook caps
Though these three previous boxes are awesome for storing the very large majority of crankbaits, even they can’t handle the new-age magnum plugs we’re seeing these days. Not to mention the magnum squarebills that are becoming more and more common.
For these oversized crankbaits, we have another solution. There are several waterproof, 3700 deep tackle trays that work really well when paired with Owner Treble Hook Safety Caps.
Boxes like the Buzbe Empty Colony 28 Deep Tackle Box, Plano WaterProof StowAway 3741 Deep or the Flambeau Zerust Max Waterproof Tuff Tainer WP5001ZM.
All of these boxes have one deep, spacious cavity that works really well for storing oversized crankbaits. By adding Owner Treble Hook Safety Caps to the mix, you can keep the hooks on your baits from tangling with one another. As well as ensure you won’t end up burying a hook in your hand when you go digging for a lure.
Throwing a rust inhibitor like Flambeau’s Zerust Plastabs into the box will also help prevent corrosion or rust from any moisture that makes its way into the box. As we stated before, it’s always a good idea to let your baits dry before putting them up, but even the humidity in the air is enough to rust baits at times. So having these rust inhibitors in the boxes makes for an even safer storage system.
In conclusion
Whether you’re trying to store a handful of a squarebills or a whole arsenal of crankbaits, one of these storage systems can accommodate everything from shallow water plugs to the deepest-diving baits. They all have waterproof seals and they’re all durable quality boxes. So it really comes down to what you’re trying to store.
For small to mid-range baits, the Crank Bank and Bass Mafia 3700DD are hard to beat. If you can get your hands on a Crank Coffin, it’s great for the slightly deeper divers. Then the handful of baits that are too big for these boxes will still fit in a deep, single-cavity box.
The Crank Bank comes in at $29.99, which is considerably less than the $49.99 you’ll have to fork out for the Cranking Coffin or the $46.99 for the Bass Mafia 3700DD. But remember, the Cranking Coffin can store 44 baits and the 3700DD can store 48, where the Crank Bank has a 24-bait capacity. So on the per-bait basis, these three boxes have a very similar price tag at around a dollar per bait.
If you make a little bit of an investment here and dial in a storage system that works well for you, you’ll find that’s it’s worthwhile in the long run.
