Sure, there are some parts of the world that don’t slow down for the winter months when it comes to fishing, but whether you’re locked in waiting for the lake to thaw or simply awaiting tournament season to kick off; NOW is the time to make sure that all of your gear is ready to go. And besides, if the cold is going to force us inside and away from the lake, at least there is still a way to occupy your brain with the sport we all love.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll go over several things we can all do to be ready whenever the time to heads to the lake comes. First and foremost, comes tackle organization.

If you’re anything like me, all of your gear starts the year in perfect order only to be strewn about and thrown into random boat lockers as the year progresses. For that reason, I like to take some downtime to sort through all of my tackle and get it back in some sort of decent order. This is a great time to pull everything out and check its condition. Do you have any jigs or spinnerbaits with skirts falling off? Anything that’s rusted and needs to be thrown out? Do your crankbaits and jerkbaits need fresh treble hooks? Is there anything that needs to be restocked for the year, especially when it comes to terminal tackle like weights and hooks? Now is the perfect time to address these things.

Once I’ve piled all of my tackle into one spot, I’ll put it all back into categorized tackle storage boxes. The more the merrier as it makes things much easier to find when you ARE on the water. I want to make sure there aren’t stray squarebills in my deep cranking box or bladed jigs lost in a pile of soft plastics. Let’s get all of this nice and orderly before I wreak havoc on it in the coming months.

Of course, we would all rather be fishing, but don’t slack on taking advantage of the time we have to make our fishing days more efficient and as least frustrating as possible!