Fishing Michigan

Can you tell its a chilly morning out there, posting into overdrive this morning.

To the point,  with the cost of jigs these days, its a good idea to protect them as best you can.  You’ve seen the fly boxes that I use for some of the jigs where they are snug in the foam.  Little Atom sells “Bug Luggage” for storage.  All those ideas are fine for taking the jigs out onto the ice, but there is always a “but”.  How do you organize the jigs; size, color, glow or brand even?

For taking long trips, and just to have organized up in the shop I use these bass worm bags.  Each bag has seven pages that are zippered at the bottom.  The fronts are clear plastic so you can see what jigs are in that particular page you are looking at.  I have the bags separated by species; bluegill, crappie and perch. In each bag I have the pages separated by manufacturer.  It just seems easier to say, I want to use a “Doodle Bug” so I go right to the Northland page in the crappie or perch bag.

The jigs are stored and secured on a piece of foam that slides into the pages.  They are roughly the same size as the window so you can see all of the jigs with the flip of each page.

The bags themselves actually have pockets or areas to store more gear.  In these I might have files for cleaning out eyes or sharpening hooks.  In the bluegill bag I might have 2 lb Vanish for leaders, the crappie and perch bags might have 4 lb test.  I have extra little bags full of species appropriate sized hooks for rigging on the go.  I have had extra bulk unpainted jigs in the crappie and perch bag,  and all the bags have a small selection of split shot to keep the lines tight while fishing if I need it. 

Always good, to be ready for just about anything out on the ice. With these bags you have everything with  you, plus they protect the jigs from themselves.  What’s that mean?  Think about having all your jigs in a loose collection inside a tiny plano box, just rattling around.  The more they rattle, the more they collide with each other.  Eventually you will start to see little flecks of paint collecting inside.  Using a secured way of transporting your jigs will help ensure a longer life on the paint jobs, and many more trips of use for yourself.

After getting the auger mount on the front rack,  I started looking on the internet for a tote or storage box that I could use to lighten my shanty up.  To get the size I wanted, it was going to cost a few bucks, few hundred actually.  Luckily, the family tradition of never throwing anything  away was successfully handed down to me.  This is what I came up with,  too bad I didn’t think of it sooner, could have done some before and after pics.

Most of the totes and storage racks and packs were either soft sided,  or too large.  They actually would have fit on the rear rack ok, but only if I removed the back rail along the composite rack.  A fairly easy thing to do,  I just didn’t want to do it.  It just comes in handy for a number of reasons.  What I basically wanted was a storage box, and in most cases what I found was really more of a second seat (often padded) with storage in what looked like arm rests and one for the back too.  I am not entirely sure why this is, there are very few quads out there where riding double is legal.  This Polaris isn’t one of them, besides that style didn’t offer enough storage space.

I found an old Rubbermade tote that had some camping supplies just sitting there,  since the last time it was used was by my brother,  I don’t think I would have even trusted the coffee, much less the pie filling.  So into a box it went to meet the trash next Tuesday.  Cleaned it up, and scrubbed it down, but something else had to be done before I tackled the idea of mounting the tote to the rack.  Originally it was tan and green, and even though it was going to be just for storing my ice gear ( first aid, auger repair kit, flasher, tackle, camera and other small items ) I wanted it to look nice, like it was made for it.

I looked through the shop, and of course I had some black paint in the storage closet.  A can of black gloss,  and a couple of coats later, this is what it looked like.  Again, I should have done some pics going through the steps of converting it to an ice tote, but that whole hindsight thing comes into play.  That will probably be a reoccurring theme for years to come.  I get an idea, start the work, finish the work and then think, I should have had a camera during this whole ordeal.

The next step was to secure the tote to the back composite rack.  If something is on sale, it gets picked up, never mind that I don’t need it right at the moment, but it could be years later, and I will find a use for it.  Same thing here with the latches I used on the side of the tote.  To help reinforce the inside, I cut three by four inch rectangles, drilled my holes with the press, used the hand drill on the tote, ran the bolts through and secured them. Next I took the composite rack off, installed eye bolts near the front, and put the rack back on.

Attaching the tote to rack was fairly easy.  I took bungee cords, and rapped them around the rack until I had just enough left to snuggly secure the tote to the newly installed latches.  This actually left the tote quite secure and there was no play in the tote at all.  I think I picked up this redundant gene from my dad years back, so just in case something happened to the lid, I wanted to secure it also.  I ran a 48″ bungee under the back rail to the front.  Too loose, so I went to the tool box and picked up some wire cutters.  Snipped off the coil spring hook, measured the stretched out bungee,  and snipped off the excess.  Before reattaching the hook, I threaded the bungee through that eye bolt in the front of the rack.  I did this so that if the bungee was loose it wouldn’t fall off, the metal coil would prevent it from snaking back through.  There is absolutely no conceivable way this thing is coming off.