Take a Shine to It! (by Montana Grant)
By angelamontana

Posted: February 6, 2015

grantyThe winter “off season” is a great time to deal with your gear, tackle, and worn equipment. In many ways, the process of preparing to go fishing is as much fun as going.

Shining up your old and tarnished lures is a great way to accomplish something on a crappy day. The preparation you do now will pay off later.

Get out your old tackle or spinner box and dump everything out. Sort, organize, and inspect them. You will discover line still attached, broken barbs, dull hooks, and dull spinner blades. Cut off any old line and sharpen the hooks. If the treble hooks are broken, replace them with new ones. The Gamakatsu brand treble hooks are acid sharpened and fantastic. You will catch three times more fish simply by sharpening all of your hooks!

Now soak your lures in a soapy warm water bath to clean them. It is amazing how much dirt, dried algae, and crud collects onto your lures. Once clean and dry, you can start the shining!

I use Brasso metal polish to remove tarnish from my lures blades. Take a Q-tip and apply some polish to your blades on both sides and the edges. Let it dry and wipe it off. The Q-tips also work for a quick polishing on smaller lures.

Once your lures are clean, shiny, and sharp, organize them into a secure compartmentalized box. I prefer a thinner and less bulky box that easily fits into my fishing vest. You don’t need to take every lure that you own with you when fishing. Maintain a support tackle box in the truck where you can reload as needed.

My Dad always told me that the best way to catch fish is to have your lure or bait in the water. The time you take looking for a certain lure, untangling hooks, and missing strikes because of a dull hook is wasted. My fishing “me time” is precious and needs to be used catching fish.

Tight lines,

Montana Grant

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