Cleaning and Repacking Tackle Boxes

During warm weather fishing I seldom take a moment on the water to care for the arrangement of the tackle boxes. Lures are trimmed off line and tossed in. Nested items get knocked out of place from drops. This is a testament to both fast fishing action and shear laziness. But once a year, during winter, I dump everything out, sort the items, trim off old line, remove unidentifiable organic matter, and carefully repack.

We have four main boxes:

The Jig Box – Used 99% of the time. Hooks, Sinkers, Slip bobbers. Jigs. Tails.

The Heavy Box ­–  The expensive plugs, spinners, and wiggly things I bought and almost never use.

The Musky Box – The really expensive baits and rigs we almost never use.

The Ice Box – Tiny jigs, depth weights, and spoons. Used when my leg allows me to get out on the ice.

Like most “serious” fishermen, we have hundreds of dollars worth of tackle. Maybe thousands. Yet year after year we end up using a gold hook and split shot, or a jig tipped with a minnow or leach to catch virtually all the fish. More on this in our next post.

The photo above is not one of our actual boxes. But we bet it looks a lot like yours at season’s end.