Being organized can have a big influence on your success as an angler. The difference between efficiently finding what you’re looking for — or becoming frustrated and choosing something that’s not your first choice.

I’ve found this to be the case with my crappie fishing stuff, a species I’ve become serious about catching in recent years. They can be hard to find, and when you do, they can be fussy biters. In other words, challenging.

As I’ve worked to improve my crappie fishing game, my collection of jigs, rigs, and soft plastic offerings has grown. So much so that a moderately sized tackle bag contained two 3,700 size utility boxes with random assortments of jigs and soft plastics, a box dedicated to hand tied hair jigs, and a zip lock bag with a wide assortment of crappie-sized plastic baits in their original packaging. Also, a small box with blade baits and a few small crankbaits, and a smaller one with snaps, swivels, hooks, and sinkers. Not a good system, one that had me sifting through boxes and bags to find what I wanted.

Recently, I decided to change that. The first step was in using a Plano Rustrictor Terminal Tackle Box to house all my leadhead jigs, blade baits, and terminal tackle (hooks, sinkers, snaps, and swivels). Byt doing so, I eliminated the 3,700 boxes as well as the two smaller boxes.

What I like about this Rustrictor box is that it has 26 fixed compartment. Most utility boxes have moveable dividers so you can customize things. The reality is that the dividers loosen, tend to creep upward, creating a void which allows items to shift from one compartment to another. It can be maddening. I can’t speak to the effectiveness of the rust inhibitor built into the box as I toss in a silica bag in such boxes, but it can’t hurt.

Soft plastic baits will now go into a KastKing Utility Binder Tackle Box, basically a small satchel with ring binders like a notebook. The rings secure several zippered, transparent sleeves to hold soft plastic baits. I intend to keep the baits in their original packaging, which in turn will go into the sleeves.

Rather than digging through a larger zip lock bag to find the package of baits I’m looking for, which is nearly always on the bottom, said package will be visible in the see-thru sleeve. That’s the hope, at least.

The KastKing bag has additional sleeves in the interior sides of the front and back, as well as pockets on the front and back. Like the terminal tackle utility box, it will reside inside the old Plano Tackle Bag I’d originally tasked for crappies.

My hand-tied crappie jigs will remain in their home, a 3,600 size Gamakatsu Slit Foam Case, which is ideal for securing these baits to preserve their shape and form. It joins the other boxes in the tackle bag.

Other crappie fishing essentials, in my mind, are bottles of scent/flavor attractants like Berkely Crappie Nibbles and Gulp Alive minnows (one inch). These I keep handy in a tray mounted to the floor of my boat. If not for this, I’d find a home in the tackle bag. Leader material and super glue, to secure plastics to jigs, are kept in mesh pockets on the outside of the main bag.

Organizing tackle can be fun, especially at this time of year when fishing options decrease.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle