Hey Guys, 

 

I was wanting some help with building a tackle box so that it covers any situation you can encounter.  Some things to consider when answering are these: 

 

1. River Lures

2. Murky/Dirty Water

3. Something for when the bite gets hard

4. Lures for wood and/or grass

I've also included pictures of the area that I fish a lot. (Or attempt too)

 

Trying to cover every situation is a tall order. The only respond I could possibly have for that request is a 5" and 7" worms, and Senko's all Texas rigged. Other than that most other things after situation specific and require more input. Sorry

I don't expect for it all to be answered, just to see what y'all use in different situations I've listed or see whats in your tacklebox that might prove valuable in mine.  I've never pulled a bass out of a river or murky water or with soft plastics. 

Since there is that house on the water where you fish, it's perfect for throwing jigs and flipping and pitching along the supports where the fish will be. You also have the wall to cast along to, and in the warmer months you can swim jigs and run cranks along the wall for strikes. I have a similar wall where I fish and we always do well on cranks and swim jigs, as well as t-rigs and shaky heads

The current is so strong when I threw cranks in there before, it pushes it to the post and it gets snagged.  And by wall you mean rockwall right?

Yes, I am referring to the rock wall, however if there are rocks in the middle you could try throwing craws or jigs and just slowly dragging then along the bottom, but I'm not quite sure what cover is in the river?

Its very rocky inside the pool on the right side with a decent population of various sunfish, on the left side, it has a sunken tree followed with sand. 

If it were me I would throw jigs in the rocks and I would crank around the sunken tree with sunfish colored cranks, as well as square bills to deflect off of the tree.

Cranking around the trees might work, but by the time I start to crank the bait, the current pushes the lure downstream.

I carry what I might use, not for storage. I keep "reserves" on shelves and a pegboard in my man cave.

So, think "water column" and "season". Let's start at the top: I don't carry traditional hard baits this time of

year. Although some baits might be used on topwater (Rage Tail Menace), the only hard lure I carry right

now is the MegaStrike Cavitron.

 

Next, jerkbaits. Then shallow runners: Soft swimbaits and swim jigs, Bandit 200 and Red Eye Shad.

 

A little deeper: Silver Buddy, StrikeBack and Siebert Cosmic spinnerbaits. 

 

Bottom: Rage Tail soft plastics, MegaStrike MegaBug and Mega Tube Craw. Siebert Outdoors

jigs. Sworming Hornet/ LFT Live Magic Shad.

 

Pretty simple, huh?

 

 

 

It doesn't have to be necessarily for this time of year.

Good luck in your quest to assemble a tackle box that will cover any situation you might encounter.  I've been on this quest for several decades.  Currently I have an 18' floating tackle box, that I can ride on, with twin attached motors (gas & electric) and every so often I float into a situation that I'm not totally prepared for.  Sometimes I think that even if I had Dr. Who's tesseract, I couldn't fill it with enough gear to cover every possible situation.  That isn't any excuse to not try though.   There are lots of guys here and elsewhere that got more and cooler gear than me, and on some level I think they've got the same problem I have.

 

So anyway, I don't have any advice other than to do your best to try to predict what fishing situations you will face and assemble gear for that.  Try not to spend so much money that it negatively effects other areas of your life.

It doesn't have to be necessarily for this time of year.

 

The broader point is : Pack what you might use and think in terms of depth.