Use the Winter Months to Prepare and Organize

It's too cold to go out and fish, but you still have fishing on your mind. There are plenty of things you could be doing that will prepare you for the tournament season right around the corner. Organization is probably the most important thing while you're on your boat or digging in your tackle bag so take some time to organize your stuff. Make sure to clean out all the old soft plastics that may be scattered in the bag and put them in their rightful places. Often times, if you're like me, you'll find some random hooks and tungsten weights that can save you some money by not having to buy as many throughout the season; I figure why throw away money. To help organize I use standard ziplock bags for my random plastics and even put full bags of the same worms in them. I've found I have quite a few of the same worms (people's worm, MMIII, etc) and it's easy to place them all together for easy access.

Another thing I like to do is the small things that take time when out on the water; an example being putting the baitkeeper on flipping hooks.

As you can see here, it doesn't take much time or effort to sit down and melt some barbs while watching some football.

Also, I'll change out hooks on crankbaits or add stinger hooks to swimbaits. This stinger hook is made by owner and provides a really strong trailer hook that is perfect for the six and seven inch Top Hook Tournament Talons from Osprey.

The winter is also the time to take inventory of product and re-stock. It seems that around this time of year a lot of tackle sites are having great deals. One of my favorite things to buy is bulk line. You'd be surprised how much money, effort, and time it saves you to be able to re-spool easily from the same bulk line. I tend to use 15 and 20lb fluorocarbon a lot so I purchase the line 1000 yards at a time.

Speaking of line, another thing you should take note of is the line you put on those reels. I'm not sure if I could count the number of times I've had to change my fishing line because I just plain forgot what lb test I had on it. The best way I've found to remember the line I've had on the reel is the Reel-Stix product. It's a small line indicator sticker that is much cleaner than writing the actual number on the rod and it won't leave a sticky mess on the reel when you take it off to put the next sticker on.