okay so the season is close to opening up here and i am really looking at how i store things in my boat. i have a 14X36 V jon boat and currently i keep everything in my 2 duffle bags which consist of 10 regular 3700'S 2 deep 3700's and 1 regular 3600 and a few other bags of soft plastics and clam shells of swimbaits.

 

my question is how do you guys organize your tackle in a smaller boat i am exploring the idea of basically having a footlocker with all of my trays in it but i am still kind of lost as far as the soft plastics go 

Whether a big or small boat, I use the large ziplock bags to store plastics.  One bag per color.  Whether horn toads or senkos, super easy to see what you have.

On 6/6/2017 at 10:57 AM, Redlinerobert said:

Whether a big or small boat, I use the large ziplock bags to store plastics.  One bag per color.  Whether horn toads or senkos, super easy to see what you have.

  

Ziplocks work better than anything else I've found.   I sort mine by type instead of color though.

I sort mine by type also in large ziplocs. Since I also fish on other people's boats only on certain bodies of water I'll keep one ziploc with everything I need for that lake so I can easily take it with me.  I have a river smallie bag like that too for when I go out in my kayak.  I usually store everything in a crate I also use for my kayak that I keep in my center rod locker.  Gives me just enough room for my rods to slide into the locker without hitting the crate. 

I use ziplock bags for some same-style baits- Senko or tubes for example.  I also have some file box style containers which are perfect for putting in a bags upright.  I use these same presentation baits- dropshot and pitching for example.  Works for me.  

I used to keep my gear stacked in various containers in the large center compartment in my boat.  I had containers stacked on each other which required some digging to get at the bottom of the storage area.  I wanted something that could stand on end and be readily available without excavating the storage locker.

 

I started searching around in the storage container sections in Walmart and other stores, and this is what I settled on.

 

With some leg work, you can probably do something similar, but on a smaller scale for your boat.

 

Whether in my canoe, or the nitro, I fish out of my tackle bag.  I carry 3 3700 plano stow aways and one of the storage boxes I get at Walmart in the household section.  I have a "basic pack" that contains all of the plastics I use regularly.