Getting the Most Bang for Your Buck

I’m Nick and I’m a Tackle Hoarder.  This either makes me the best person to write this piece or the worst-I’ll leave that up to you to decide.  In honor of Black Friday I wanted to talk about my tackle “collection”.  As we head into ice season many anglers are looking to fortify their equipment selection and for good reason.  We love having new toys to try going into the season.  With so many options it is easy to do some serious damage to the wallet-especially this time of year, so I wanted to discuss how I approach tackle buying.

I was always one that wanted to have every brand and type of lure possible.  Early in my angling career I would tie on sometimes as many as a dozen or more different presentations in one day.  Sometimes I would find the “hot presentation”, but many times I struggled greatly.  As I became more experienced I found my “confidence baits” and began to minimize the time I spent retying.  Now all these random lures I’d bought were just taking up space.  This made me really stop and think on how I approached presentation overall.  My hope is you can learn from my past failures and spend less time practicing tying knots and more time setting hooks!

You can have the “right” presentation tied on and you still might not catch fish.  Why??  Because the best presentation is worthless if there aren’t fish to impress.  You don’t put on your best clothes to sit at home on the couch.  There aren’t people to see you so what do they care what you look like!  The most important part of presentation is having fish to present to!  I struggled so badly because I either wasn’t on fish or was on inactive fish and I was making changes to my presentation as opposed to making changes to the actual fish I was fishing for.

I am a firm believer that location is 99.5% of fishing.  Presentation is .4% and having fun catching fish is the final .1%.  Now don’t get me wrong you can’t make a great meal if you leave out an important part of the recipe, but in the right situation you can probably substitute water for milk and get away with it.

This makes the #1 part of presentation location.  Spend the bulk of your time looking at maps, your way points and picking your location instead of worrying about what you have tied on.  Once you’ve done the heavy lifting of picking where to fish now you can have fun with what to make them bite on.  Now don’t get me wrong I have a blast trying new presentations, but when I’m in a tournament I want my best options in the water.  You don’t hope the back ups can get the job done in a playoff game.  You play the starters!

The first decision you need to make is what your personality is.  Every angler is different.  Lipless lures like Rippin Raps, Chubby Darters, Lindy Darters etc have taken the market by storm, but I just don’t like them.  Nothing against the lure or the other anglers using them that’s just not what suites my personality.  I’m a boring guy-rattling spoons or flutter spoons are about as aggressive as I get.  I’ve identified this in myself and that has given me great confidence when I use those baits.

The second decision you need to make is what mood you think the fish will be in.  If there has been some rough weather patterns, its mid-winter or they haven’t been aggressive lately the biggest, loudest option in your box is probably not going to work.  The driving force of my personality I discussed above is my beliefs on fish mood.  I feel that if a super aggressive fish comes in they’ll crush my presentation regardless what it is.  The kicker is if a neutral or passive fish comes in they won’t crush my super aggressive presentation, but I might be able to gently coax them into something more passive.  I play down to the lowest common denominator because those aggressive fish are the fun ones, it’s the ones you have to scratch out that separate a good day from a great day.

Once I’ve decided the type of mood the fish will be in that’s when I tie on a couple different options.  Usually I try to have two or three different options that I can hit them with.  Fighters rely on combinations to score points and that’s how I view fishing.  My initial option is going to be my most aggressive.  This is what I use to call fish in and target the aggressive fish.  This will often be a rattle spoon (VMC Rattle Spoon, Buckshot, Rattln Flyer, etc) or flutter spoon (Hum Dingers or Slender Spoons usually).  I can call fish in, but I can hit the brakes and still have a viable presentation if they don’t crush it.

My second option is going to often be a quieter spoon.  This is usually a similar profile just without a rattle (Forage Minnow, Tumbler, Frostee, etc) or more of a slab spoon (Flash Champ, Swedish Pimple etc).  Sometimes backing down just a hair or losing the rattle is all you need.

If I still can’t make them bite at this point I really back it off.  Generally if I’m in this situation deadsticks are going to be the star of the show or small tungsten jigs.  While you give up that attraction you can fish more to the likes of your audience.  If a fish won’t take a small minnow on a plain hook just barely struggling I highly suggest finding somewhere else to try.

Now this doesn’t mean you’re limited to one presentation for each fish.  Like I said I’m all for throwing combinations at them.  I have my other option(s) right next to me so when the initial bait doesn’t work I can follow up.  They might come into a spoon, but once the fish stalls out a smaller jig right in front of their face often results in a knock out.

How does this impact shopping and prep?  I first break down my “categories”.  These categories are going to vary based on your personality, but my main options are “Flutter Spoons”, “Rattle Spoons”, “Compromise Spoons”, “Slab Spoons” and “Jigs”.  Once I’ve broken these down I pick one or two of my favorite options for each category and work from there.  Then I mix in a few “fun” options if I want to try something new and the staples that can work year round such as plain hooks and 1/32-1/8oz spoons.  This keeps your tackle box organized, empty of lures you won’t use and saves you money as well.

The money you didn’t spend on spoons/jigs and leaves your budget room to field 2 or 3 nice set ups to tie these presentations onto.  Usually my most aggressive presentation will go on a Medium-Light and then back it down to an Ultralight for the lighter presentations.  My thought process is the more aggressive the presentation the more aggressive they’ll bite.  I probably won’t need the most sensitive tip to feel an angry walleye smoke a heavy spoon, but I might need it to feel a tentative fish barely inhale a small jig.

Another option would be to invest in your location.  I mentioned it above location is 99.5% of fishing.  When I evaluate my investments spending $6-10 on a Mike’s Map had a much higher return than spending $6-10 on tackle.  Why?  Mike’s Maps show me structure across the lake and the GPS points take me right to them  This cuts a HUGE chunk of out of that 99.5% because the work is done for you.  All you need to decide is way point you think will be your best option.

Hopefully my experience being a “tackle hoarder” helps you save money and have more success this upcoming ice season!  Enjoy shopping, stay safe and cheers to a great season!

Good fishing!

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