Items You Don't Use

[NTW]

I am paring down the tackle I am going to bring in my boat for this year because I had some stuff that just took up space. Here are a couple examples...

- Red worm hooks

- Lead bullet weights: After switching to tungsten I don't want to go back

I am curious what others may be removing from their "everyday" tackle and to see if someone may think that red worm hooks are great for something.

[Cecil]

Brass weights

[RumRiverRat]

Rapala DT Flats.

[Timmy D]

A couple of seasons ago I did that exact thing. I went through everything and pulled out all the stuff I hadn't used in years or stuff I didn't like to use. Anything I didn't have confidence in got pulled out. It is really nice not fighting all that extra junk in the boat.

[Cecil]

I'll buy them!

[RumRiverRat]

I'll buy them!

Do you actually catch fish with them?

I spent a lot of time fishing the Mississippi between the Camden Bridge and Ford Dam for smallies last summer and could not catch a cold with the DT Flats. DT4's in Baby Bass and Crawdad were a different story.

[NTW]

Yea I think it will save me some time digging around. Plus it will make room for new stuff...which would be a whole nother topic.

Rum you are doing away with DT Flats? I like those!

[Larson15]

Need to slim down my crank bait boxes for sure. It seems like I keep buying cranks but don't use them enough to justify 5 full boxes and a 10lb bag of unopened ones. The other thing Im going to do is get rid of all the jigs that I dont care for anymore. Once you find a few jigs you really like its hard to use anything different.

[Cecil]

Nope, just like to buy stuff

Jk, yeah, I have caught fish with them. Nothing spectacular, but have caught em

[Nick Kuhn]

I like the DTFlats. I catch fish on them, and they cast better than the regular DT's.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Rapala DT Flats.

One mans trash is another mans treasure... Dt Flats are my go to crank.. go figure.

[JeffB]

Carried cannon Mag 10 downrigger and all the salmon gear to the attic, I just don't go salmon fishing anymore.

[Larson15]

I have found that the DT flats are very effective when using a stop and pause technique.

[Deitz Dittrich]

As for the original question.. Not sure yet. I think I will go pretty much status quo next year. But you never know. I could change my mind.. I know I could loose about 50 lbs in crankbaits no problem. I have a ton I dont use, but cant get rid of them and seem to always buy more.

[RickyBobby]

saw in a fishing magazine ad that goodwill was looking for used gear and tackle. Has FM ever done a used gear collection/donation event??

[Cecil]

D. You will need to make room in your boat for all my cranks

[NTW]

I wonder what percentage of crankbaits sold ever see water.

Last night I added a few items to the list of decommissioned tackle

- Flying lures (not even sure where I got them)

- A number of mangled spinnerbaits

I think I am going to hang on to the blades. I don't fool with spinners much as far as changing blades but who knows...

[kt]

I'm with Deitz on the DT flats. I love those things especially for smallies during colder water times. This fall my best crank bait for smallies was either a dtf7 or dtf3 in the yellow perch color, not the regular perch. Also like them for largemouth on weedlines and weed flats. Caught a couple nice walleyes on them bass fishing this late summer as well.

As far as reducing my tackle in the boat. Definitely something i need to do but i have a hard time getting rid of some things especially soft plastics.

[BassNut33]

I am still carrying around old plastics from when Capra's had the big bin where you could put individual worms in a bag and pay by the weight. I think that is how it worked I was a pretty young kid at the time. Anyway they need to go! And I have about 10 pocket knives/utility tools.

[thatoneguy]

saw in a fishing magazine ad that goodwill was looking for used gear and tackle. Has FM ever done a used gear collection/donation event??

I like the idea. How can we get this rolling?

[RK]

Hiya -

One of my projects this winter is to do a major thinning of the herd in my tackle boxes. I got sick of lugging around boxes and boxes of stuff when I knew full well there was stuff in there I'd use once or twice a year, tops.

I went through my box of jigheads and weeded out all the oddball heads that I had one or two of for whatever reason and thinned things down to the ones I actually use - one brand of mushroom head (Northland) in different sizes, one kind of ball head in different sizes... I got rid of a bunch of jigheads with crummy bronze hooks I can't stand... That took me from jigheads scattered in three different boxes to one box. One very heavy box...

I also went through my crankbait boxes. I took out all my boxes, and for each lure type (deep diving cranks, jerkbaits, etc.) filled ONE box with 'must have' baits. I use Falcon FTO boxes for most of my stuff, so that makes it hard to overstuff boxes too, which actually helps.

Other than river smallies, I rarely throw shallow diving cranks - they're just not suited to where I fish. So why was I carrying a dozen of them? I trimmed that down to about 4 and combined them with my lipless cranks, which I also thinned out. I got rid of a bunch of deep diving cranks too. I know what I use, so why carry a dozen extras? I'm down to about a dozen deep divers now, and that includes duplicates of ones I use often enough to justify a spare.

The leftover pile was pretty amazing.

So I have one Falcon box for deep divers, one for shallow divers and lipless baits, one for shad baits, and two for jerkbaits.

One thing I did do was take some of the stuff I used only in certain cases, like river smallies, and combine them all in a couple boxes. No sense carrying a bunch of river cranks mixed in with everything else every time I went out. I have some late season deep diving cranks (mainly baits I've modified to suspend or sink slowly) I put in one box too so I can start carrying it in August and not lug it around all season.

I did this somewhat last winter, and am getting even more militant about it this offseason. It'll dramatically reduced the amount of stuff I carry around.

I'm also trying to thin down the number of rods I carry. I'm trying to weed out the uni-taskers in the collection, especially for stuff I only do occasionally like Carolina Rig. For as often as I do it, I can get by with a multi-purpose rod. This is actually proving harder than the tackle boxes. Occupies my mind though

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Chris519]

Good thread. I have a ton of stuff all over the basement right now. I am cleaning reels and organizing boxes of stuff. All of us bass fisherman have way too much stuff.

I put a lot of cranks and plastics in a huge bin that stays in the basement. I have a couple of large stacks of 3700 plano boxes. Last year I started cutting down and only loading the Ranger with what I was sure I would actually use. It is tough to cut back too much because there will be that ONE time when you catch a fish on an old crank or old plastic that you thought you had written off. LOL.

[Nick Kuhn]

Do I smell another garage sale RK? I caught 7 muskies on the 2 lures I snagged at yours last year (albeit they were also the 7 smallest).

[RK]

Do I smell another garage sale RK? I caught 7 muskies on the 2 lures I snagged at yours last year (albeit they were also the 7 smallest).

There will be another garage sale as of right now. Some friends of mine are getting in on the act. Glad the lures worked 7 muskies is 7 muskies, small or not. They're all line drives in the box score.

[Juan Grande]

Just don't let your wives see your pile of stuff you don't use.

I have a ton of older Rapala floaters with rusty hooks that take up space in my box but never get used.