I’m frequently asked for fishing gift advice around the holiday season – often by wives, girlfriends and mothers. The spectrum varies from a tackle box suggestion for a 5-year-old to deep-diving crankbait recommendations for the hardcore ledge fisherman, but the advice for women is typically cut and dry. Among men, the question I’m most often asked is how to build an efficient tackle box – one that consists only of quality lures that get regular use. Unfortunately, that one is anything but cut and dry.
The perfect tackle box is the dream of every angler – void of clutter, yet diverse enough for all scenarios, seasons and conditions. Even the tour pros grapple with burgeoning tackle – some have gone so far as to institute a “one goes in, one comes out rule.” Tackle box efficiency is a difficult proposition and its one I’ve spent considerable time pondering.
I maintain a theory that each of the major tackle companies produce two awesome baits, the others just round out or compliment their product portfolio. In essence, the two baits carry the company – think Yamamoto Senko or Zoom Brush Hog as examples. If you bought only those two baits across the board, you would in theory have the ideal box.
Since theory is far from practice (and talk is cheap), I forced myself to put a pen to paper and complete this little exercise. To further simplify, I have limited myself to 15 tackle manufacturers. While there are certainly others that warrant consideration, we need to keep our box concise and 30 lures sounds just about perfect. Below is my two-by-two list of companies and their lures in no particular order. This is admittedly a subjective mix-and-match based on both my personal success (or lack thereof) and my reporting experience.
1. Zoom: Baby Brush Hog, Finesse Worm
2. Strike King: Pro Model 6XD Crankbait, Red Eye Shad
3. Z-Man: ChatterBait, Flappin’ CrawZ
4. Megabass: Vision 110, Giant Dog-X
5. Reactions Innovations: Sweet Beaver, Skinny Dipper
6. Buckeye Lures: Spot Remover jig, Football Mop jig
7. Berkley: Gulp Alive leech, PowerBait Hollow Belly swimbait
8. Spro: Little John DD crankbait, Bronzeye frog
9. Yamamoto Custom Baits: Senko, single-tail grub
10. Lucky Craft: Pointer 78, RC 2.5
11. Pradco: Heddon Spook, Rebel Pop-R
12. Rapala: Storm Wiggle Wart, Rapala Shad Rap
13. Damiki Fishing Tackle: Hydra, DC-100
14. War Eagle Custom Lures: spinnerbait, buzzbait
15. Mann’s Bait Company: Jelly Worm, Alabama Rig
Now let’s take a comprehensive look at what we’ve got. We’ve got the entire water column covered with several topwater plugs (Spook, Dog-X, Pop-R), several deep divers (Little John DD, 6XD) and some mid-to-shallow plugs (DC-100, RC 2.5, Shad Rap).
We’ve also got plastics for rigging (Zoom Finesse Worm, Mann’s Jelly Worm), plastics for flipping (Sweat Beaver, Brush Hog), and plastics for sight-fishing (Hydra, Flappin’ CrawZ, Gulp leech).
We’ve got lures for the frigid winter (Vision 110, Pointer 78, Wiggle Wart, single-tail grub), prespawn (Senko, Red Eye Shad, Shad Rap, Skinny Dipper), post-spawn (Hollow Belly, RC 2.5, Carolina-rigged Brush Hog, Spook), summer (Football Mop jig, 6XD, Little John DD) and fall (Bronzeye frog, Alabama Rig).
We’ve got power-fishing lures (War Eagle spinnerbait, ChatterBait, aforementioned cranks) and finesse lures (Spot Remover jig with Zoom Finesse Worm, Gulp leech, Senko). We’ve got lures for largemouths, smallmouths and spotted bass. We’ve basically got it all in only 30 baits.
There are some notable omissions. In my opinion, the best tube on the market is made by Mizmo. The best drop-shot worm is the Roboworm and the best prop bait is from Brian’s Bees. I also failed to include the Fish Head Spin, a bait that is tough to categorize but has won each of the past two Forrest Wood Cups. All these baits are awesome, yet they couldn’t quite make it into my condensed tackle box.
In retrospect, this two-by-two theory worked great for most companies. But for some of the larger ones like Strike King, Pradco and Rapala, it was extremely difficult to pare it down to just two. And while this was a fun exercise, I’ve long since deviated from any efficient strategy. Despite past promises not to be a tackle junkie, I have a basement full of lures with layers of dust on them. Try as we may to be efficient, the fear of not having the latest craze lure is just too strong.