Carrying hooks and soft plastics, keeping things nice and simple and efficient

A while ago I stopped pre-rigging my soft plastics on various weedless hooks because I was ending up with far too many different lures on far too many different hooks which were then gradually going rusty however much I might wash them down after use. As much as I don’t have to pay for the Savage Gear stuff I might fish with these days, I also fish with other stuff and I hate waste so I will always do what I can to look after any fishing gear I use and get as long out of it as possible. I was also getting far too confused with what to or what not to take out fishing or testing because everything was pre-rigged. Ever since then it’s simply been a (far simpler) case of carrying a selection of different weedless hooks in an old chewing gum container which lives in my waterproof rucksack, and then whatever selection of soft plastics I think I might need in one of those long-sided washable lure boxes (soft plastics which already sit on jig heads are obviously not included in this)................

If there is one thing I can’t stand when I am actually fishing, it’s having to mess around to access the gear I need. For sure if I am taking photos I need to access my waterproof rucksack which will be set somewhere back from where I am standing for fishing, but when I am actually casting and retrieving I want what I might need to hand. It’s why I am welded to carrying a couple of washable lure boxes in a lure bag which sits at my side and is so easy to work with. But I don’t want to be going back to my rucksack just to get a hook.

And I also don’t want to carry extra bits and pieces in my lure bag (at my side) because stuff gets wet or even submerged and when I get home it’s extra gear to have to wash down and dry out. I also need to wear glasses these days for anything remotely close up so I don’t really fancy trying to scrabble around in my chewing gum container when I am waist deep in the waves for example. I could do without trying to pick a particular hook out and end up with a tangled mess which ends up in the drink if I drop it.

Nope, I keep things even simpler by thinking about where I am going fishing and the conditions I expect to find, and then I simply pick a weedless hook or two or three out and stick them in my long-sided washable lure box as per the photo above. For the most part I am using either the 4/0 or 6/0 Savage Gear weedless hooks or the heavier belly-weighted 5/0, 6/0 or 7/0 Berkley Fusion19 Weight Swimbait Hooks if I need a bit more heft. If it’s any help the 6/0 Savage Gear weedless hooks work just fine with the smaller Gravity Stick 120 size soft plastics if you run out of the 4/0 size which come with the lures in the same packet. I also like the larger 6/0 and 7/0 hooks from Savage Gear or Berkley for the 13cm and 15cm size Slender Scoop Shads which I never go bass fishing without these days. If you already do this sort of thing and you’re wondering why I am bothering to yap about this then so be it, but I spend a lot of time watching other anglers go about their fishing via my photography or guiding - and I often wonder why a lot of anglers don’t make the easy stuff a bit simpler to do.

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