Spring Cleaning Your Tackle Box
Monday, April 13th, 2009It's spring again, so time to break out your tackle box and take inventory. I would suggest that you don't wait until the last second to ensure that your best fishing lures are safe and sound. Spring clean your tackle box now to ensure smooth sailing once the fishing season begins in earnest.
If you tackle box looks like this it is time for a spring cleaning intervention
I did this exact thing over the weekend. Now perhaps it is my ADD nature, but it actually started out as a bring donations to goodwill/make my garage livable again this weekend. After I had dropped off my donations to the local Goodwill I got back to my garage to assess the situation. Much better, and my life seemed much less cluttered. But what is that over below my workbench? My tackle box of course. I should check it out. So off I went. Well, it always amazes me every spring at what extent I allow my fishing lures to intermingle for their winter hibernation. It is a very sad state every year after I get back to it. Crankbaits intertwined together with their treble hooks apparently in a permanently locked together state, it isn't a pretty site. I'm jesting to some level of course, but you get my drift.
Hopefully you are not one to have a messy tackle box come spring, but if you are, take the time now to organize it to a point that will allow for safe, easy fishing come summer. To that end I gathered up all my purchases from the great deals I found this winter and set them next to my disaster of a tackle box. Lures were strewn everywhere, making room by first taking them out of the box and separating them by type. One of my favorite lures to use in the size 7 Rapala Shad Rap. Over the past year I had accumulated 4 of these in silver/black and 1 in firetiger in addition to what I already had in my tackle box. I guess I don't need any more of them for the time being!
Take time to inventory what you have. Throw away plastic worms that are dried out or are of no use to you. Check out your crankbaits for severe signs of wear and discard as necessary. At this point it should be evident if you are sufficiently stocked with the lures you need to head into the season or not. If you aren't, make sure to make a list of what you want. We all know that we can get to be kids in a candy store that first trip to the sporting good store when that shiny new fishing lure catches our eye. Just make sure that you also grab ahold of that old standby that you are running perilously close to being out of as well.
Hopefully this will allow you to spring clean your tackle box and be ready to hit the water running when you start to fish in earnest.
