Scott: Tackling tackle box selection

This week’s mail included a copy of Bass Pro Shops “2012 Spring Angler” catalog, and I’m confident that similar epistles from Cabela’s, Gander Mountain and a host of smaller companies will arrive any day now.

I’m beginning to suspect that the no-doubt, well-meaning folks behind this flood of information are trying to convince me that I’m woefully under supplied with fishing tackle.

They’re probably right about that, but, in the interest of keeping my spouse from writing a letter to the editor of this publication, I’ll admit that I do have what even many anglers might describe as several hard lures, soft lures, top-water plugs, spoons, jigs, jig trailers, hooks, weights, floats, snaps, leaders, pliers, line cutters and, well, you get the idea.

If you’re like me, there’s no need to fret, because the BPS catalog alone has 13 pages devoted to tackle boxes.

I was surprised to see how completely the insert box concept has taken over the market.
Not that I see anything wrong with that. Far from it.

About 25 years ago, Rubbermaid introduced one of the first hard-sided tackle boxes designed to hold removable insert boxes.

The company produced outer boxes designed to hold three and seven inserts, and I grabbed up prototypes of both sizes, along with a generous supply of insert boxes.

Rubbermaid is no longer in the tackle box business, but plenty of other companies have seized the boxes-within-a-box mantle.

The beauty of insert boxes is that they allow an angler to organize his terminal tackle by type.

For example, I devote one insert box to each of the following categories: crappie tube bodies, 1/16-ounce safety-pin spinnerbaits, 1/8- and 1/4-ounce safety pin spinnerbaits, small top waters, large top waters, mini-crankbaits, wide-wobbling crankbaits, tight-wobbling crankbaits, shallow long minnow crankbaits, deep long minnow crankbaits, lipless crankbaits and whatever lures I’m field-testing at the time.

Compartments in the lids of the outer boxes hold, hooks, weights, beads, floats, snaps, etc.

Customizing the tackle I take on any given trip is a simple matter of choosing which insert boxes to load.

Traditionally, I’ve preferred hard-sided main boxes over soft-sided ones.

For general purpose use, especially in my own boat, I haven’t changed my mind.

I now use soft-sided, insert-filled tackle bags or binders with soft plastic insert envelopes for plastic worms and large spinnerbaits.

Another soft-sided satchel with a shoulder strap has proven ideal for transporting the relatively small amount of tackle needed for hike-in pond fishing.

Despite what I’ve just written and the overwhelming majority of what’s featured in catalogs this year, insert boxes aren’t the only game in town.

My main catfish angling tackle box is a classic 16-by-8-by-9-inch box with three attached trays.

It will swallow nearly 20 pounds of hooks, weights and other things dear to the heart of a catfisher angler without breaking a sweat.

That’s why my bank-walking catfishing “tackle box” is a five-gallon bucket with a padded lid that holds not only a small plastic box of hooks and weights but also a bottle of water, several kinds of bait and a burlap sack “live well.”

There are people who are harder for the lure makers to catch than I am.
My brother Wayne, for example, keeps all of his go-to-the-river catfish terminal tackle in a 13-by-6-by-7-inch box with a single tray.

A similar box with two trays stores everything he uses when fishing for other species.

It should be pointed out that he owned a tackle shop for many years, so he could grab anything he thought he might need off the shelf on his way to the river or lake.

For many years, my grandfather spent January through March in Corpus Christi, Texas, fishing for speckled trout and redfish.

He never felt the need for a tackle box any bigger or fancier than Wayne’s, but then a handful of jigs and a crankbait or two for variety are just about all any inshore angler needs on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Back home in Kansas where channel cats and bullheads were his favorite rod-and-reel species, he didn’t see the need to have any tackle box at all.

When he headed for the river that formed the southern and western boundaries of his home place, he stuck a glass medicine bottle containing a few hooks and eggs sinkers in one pocket of his overalls and a cord stringer in another.  

A three-pound coffee can was big enough to hold all the bait he figured he’d need.

It just dawned on me that I’ve made it sound like I might have more tackle than I really need.

But wait! Almost everyone who fishes with me seems to feel duty bound to “borrow” things.
Those big boxes of tackle in my boat are there strictly to avoid inconveniencing my partners.