For the last few weeks I have been gearing up for the upcoming 97-98 BassMaster season. Fishing fifteen B.A.S.S. events in one season is going to me a new experience for me. So in preparation for this season one of my top priorities is to get my boat perfectly organized. I am pretty well organized now but every now and then you have to go through everything and take a little inventory .

I am no perfectionist on this organization topic and have even been called sloppy and unorganized by my fishing partners at times but in an instant if something tells me to throw a certain lure, whether it is a lure that I haven’t thrown in years or days I know right where it is in my boat and can be fishing that lure in moments.

This all goes back to the “little things” that I refer to. If you constantly strive to do the little things they will eventually all add to up to catching more fish and being more successful as a fisherman.

If you have an intuition to throw a bait and you know the bait will work in this little situation, whatever it might be, then you have to put that intuition into action. If the exact location of that bait that your mind is telling you to throw is unknown and it would take you five minutes to find it, the timing of the intuition is thrown off and it is lost. Your frustration of not knowing where the lure is overpowers the intuition and the feeling is wasted and unfulfilled. You might not even take the time to look for the bait if you don’t know exactly where it is and the same thing happens. You cannot fish instinctively to your maximum potential if you don’t know where all of your baits are.

There are certainly plenty of other reasons to be organized in the boat , however, this is one of my main reasons for being organized, so that I can act upon an instinct in an instant.

I keep most of my crankbaits, topwaters, rogues, hooks,weights, and some plastics in clear plastic boxes. The boxes are labeled: shallow cranks, mid cranks, deep cranks, worms, craws, french fries, soft jerk baits, hula grubs, topwaters, rogues, diving rogues, etc.

The labels are all in plain view and facing up at me when I open my deck lid in my boat. It takes constant maintenance to keep these boxes organized. All of the baits you use in a day have to be put back where they came from at the end of the day to keep up with this system. After a while you will memorize the location in each box where every single lure lies and this will even speed up your lure location when you need one.

Bill Cannan Professional Fishing Guide – Lake Havasu

– Lake Havasu