Storing and organizing soft baits

Soft plastics pile up fast. A year in, most anglers have a drawer of half-empty packs, three bags of the same color, and no idea where the one they want is. A system takes an afternoon and pays back every trip. This is lesson four of the soft baits series, and it follows the sorting that lesson one and lesson three set up: sort by shape, then by color.

Why bother

There are five reasons to keep a system. You can re-rig in seconds when a school fires up. You carry less, which matters in a small boat or on a long walk. You can move your gear to another boat in minutes. You see how many packs of the same bait you already own. And it costs little: one angler did his for under $10 in bags back in 2014, so expect a bit more today.

The steps

Empty everything out. Put every bag into one big trash bag, dumps it on the floor, and says most of us are surprised by how many baits we have never used.
Sort broadly first. Good first piles are paddle-tail swimbaits, toads and topwater baits, soft jerkbaits, worms and creatures (anything with appendages that you would flip, pitch, use as a trailer or drag behind a Carolina rig). Yours will differ with the water you fish.
Then split by how you fish. One angler's list ran from flipping and pitching baits to speed worms, big curly-tail worms, stick worms, finesse worms, floating worms, lizards, and craws, chunks and trailers. There is no right answer on where a bait goes; the point is that you can find it without thinking.
Split each pile by color, in just two groups. Use light (green and natural colors) and dark (the blues, blacks and purples for dirty water), the same two families used for water clarity in lesson three. Then you can leave dark baits at home for a clear lake and the reverse for a muddy one.
Combine part-full packs, and wipe the packs down. A pack full of bait and air becomes a full bag. Packs get slimed by fish or greased by a leaky bottle of crawfish spray, so wipe them with paper towels so the baits do not swell or rot.
Bag and label each group. Use one-gallon storage bags and a permanent marker, with labels like "dark soft jerkbaits".
Put the small bags into larger ones, about three small bags to a 2 1/2-gallon bag, labeled with the category on a strip of duct tape so you can read it on the water.

Packing for the day

The sorted bags are the real payoff. Instead of hauling the whole stash, pull the shapes and colors that match the water you are going to: dark baits for a stained lake, natural colors for a clear one, and the rigs you plan to fish from lesson two. If you find a pattern, grab the baits that the fish are eating and go back to it.

Heat, mixing and disposal

Keep different brands and colors in separate bags. Some soft plastics soften or stick to other plastics and can melt together in a hot box or truck. Dispose of torn pieces in the trash, not the water. Our soft plastics guide has a short list on storing and disposing of soft plastics.

The sorting system is one angler's method from a published article, adapted to our own list of bait types. Change it to fit how you fish.

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