Pro Tips Weekly: Jim Tutt

House cleaning for next spring

If you fish all winter like I do, you don’t have to worry about winterizing your boat. Maybe a little maintenance is in order, taking stock of your rods and reels to see how they’re faring. However, getting the lure boxes ready for the next tournament season is a different matter. That’s a big deal with me. First thing, I empty all the tackle boxes and gear out of my truck and all the boat compartments. Like a lot of other pros, I carry all my tackle in my truck because we go all over the place. My first three tournaments in 2013 are at Lake Amistad, Okeechobee and Smith Lake. Amistad and Okeechobee will be pretty much the same thing, but Smith Lake will be a whole different deal. So I carry all the lures in the truck and swap them out as needed. Before then, though, I’ll go through what I have, see what I need to restock, and toss the stuff that I hauled around all last year but never used. I cull out a lot of soft plastics because I’ve got so many. Sometimes I find baits that I’ve been looking for, but mostly I find baits that I’m never going to throw and I wonder why I got them in the first place. For sure, I’ll start the year out with 10-inch worms, Senkos, flukes and some sort of swimbaits in watermelon, green pumpkin, watermelon red, junebug and black-and-blue. That’s it; the pile might grow, but that’s what I start out with. It’s a good idea to take inventory of your lures this time of year. If you find stuff you’ve had for so long that you forgot you had it, it’s time to give it away or sell it. Otherwise, it just becomes one more obstacle you have to dig through to get to the lures you really need.

—- Kellogg’s Rice Krispie Treats pro Jim Tutt, Longview, Texas