How To Store Your Fishing Soft Plastics

Being a freshman in college and majoring in engineering and physics has certainly taken its toll on me this year. I have not been able to hit the water but once this entire year, but I have begun to prepare for when I will be able to in the very near future. What this means is making sure all my tackle is ready, my reels are all cleaned and oiled, and I have everything ready to go. I particularly wanted to focus on how to better store my soft plastics.

Soft plastics can be a bass fisherman’s best friend when it comes to catching some quality fish at a quality price, but it can also be a kayak fisherman’s worst friend because of all the bags that you have to keep to store your soft plastics in. As many of you probably know, unless you keep your soft plastics in an air tight container, such as the bags they come in or a zip lock bag, they will deteriorate in quality and in your overall performance of catching fish. There certainly is no problem with keeping all your soft plastics in bags, but this isn’t very good for storage or for quickly finding the bait you want. There is a solution though which seems as if it was tailored for the kayak fisherman, and even more so a Jackson Kayak fisherman.

I have recently converted all of my soft plastics to a 3600 series size Plano water tight tackle box. As you can see, I can fit quite a lot of worms and such in a very organized and convenient manner. I was able to store six bags worth of soft plastics in this tackle box, along with some weights and hooks. For me, this is perfect because I am just starting to use soft plastics significantly and do not have a plethora of soft plastics to tote around. If you are a die hard soft plastics guy or gal, you can certainly upgrade to a 3700 series tackle box, which will give you significantly more storage.

So what is so great about using a Plano water tight storage box over plastic bags. Well, nearly everything. To start off, I can very easily see what baits I have in a particular tackle box along with grabbing one just as easily. Due to the tackle boxes being water tight, they are also air tight (although when you open and shut the lid, the amount of air that can be stored inside of the box will be present) which means your soft plastics will remain nice and fresh.

Something that you can do to enhance your tackle box even more is to spray a little bit of attractant on your soft plastics every once in a while to provide a strong scent. Being air tight, all of the soft plastics will just marinate in the juices and aromas to produce a bass stir fry. This will make your chance of getting hooked on a bass that much better, so why not take it?

You might have noticed that I said this is a perfect solution for “Jackson Kayak Fisherman”, so what’s the reasoning for this. Well, you can read a previous article of mine on kayak tackle storage which is very closely related to this topic – http://texaskayakfisher.blogspot.com/2013/04/kayak-tackle-storage.html#.U03g1lewXX8 – or you can just read the following text.

Many of the Jackson Kayak Fishing Kayaks incorporate a bungee system that runs along the inner port and starboard sides of the kayak. This allows a wide variety of uses, but maybe the most efficient use is of tackle storage. Using the integrated bungees as seen below, provides for very efficient, safe and reliable tackle storage. Although the Plano 3600 water tight tackle box is air tight, which also means it floats in water, you still don’t want to hunt down your tackle boxes if your were to tip over. You do not have to worry about this with the Jackson Kayak bungee system. a 3600 series tackle box fits perfectly along the sides of the kayak, while a 3700 series tackle box will actually fit great under your Hi-lo seating system. Do not worry though if you don’t have a Jackson Kayak, as many kayaks have some bungees, they can be easily installed if not, and you do not have to have a bungee system to use these tackle boxes.

I would most definitely recommend this type of tackle storage to any kayak fisherman with a Jackson Kayak or any other compatible kayak, but the main idea behind using the Plano 3600 series water tight tackle boxes is so you don’t have to tote around a bunch of different bags. This type of tackle box could be used for the serious bass boat angler, or even the bank fisherman who wades and walks the water while fishing. Therefor, anyone who wants their soft plastics to always be fresh, easily accessible, and easy to find can use this type of tackle storage.