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Friday
Oct312008

Milk Crates

One of the toughest parts of fishing can be finding spots to store all your gear. Walk through the sports store and you'll find dozens of boxes, bags and sacks designed to help you get all your ducks in a row, so to speak. If you're like me, you have a ton of gear, but not a ton of money to spend on expensive bags and boxes. I found a pretty good solution to one of the toughest tasks; finding suitable storage for my muskie baits. They tend to be big and they tend to take up a lot of room! My solution is a milk crate. Contrary to the talk these days, you can still get and use milk crates legally. I just called a local dairy and asked if I could purchase a couple. They were happy to get rid of a few, older bins. I used a saw to cut shallow creases along the top edge every inch or two and suddenly have a great bin which holds baits in place. The creases hold the hooks and baits in place and I've got room to hang about 30 baits per crate. Heck, do you really need more baits than that to throw anyway? I still find I only use half a dozen of them! The crates are easy to move around and don't cost a ton of dough. If you want to get really fancy, you can drop in dividers across the middle to create even more hanging space. Hey, the price is right!

Bill Sherck "The Man About The Woods"

Reader Comments (1)

Milk Crates have been in my boat some 20 plus years now as places to hang lures.
Cool to see Bill uses them also...never knew that...freaky!!!
: )
One tip to improve them from above photo is to use some plexiglass for building dividers.
One can find this at most hardware stores in 1/8 " thick, 2' square chuncks pretty cheap.
Cuts real easy by scoring witth a utility knife or Dremmel type tool or router....be sure to wear safty glasses when cutting.
You can either use a 3M type silcone to hold in place when cut to fix in place or some kind of glue....I liked silicone as it is esy to work with, has some working time should one mess up a bit and dry clear.
Simple to build...measure to your own liking and cut four cubes 4 to 6 inches higher than crate...silicone in place to inside walls of crate.
Maybe add a few small sheet metal self starting screws also to hold in place.
Cover heads with silicone.
Run bead of silicone up inside corners of box where edges meet.
Your now on your way.
Next cut three sections same hight, place to lenght that fits insdie this box.
Insert into open area of crate and silicone in place in thirds where edges meet, maybe 3 inches apart...this will now give you four open sections. That much more room and hight to hang longer, heavy lures.
Now go one step further, cut 12 smaller sections same hight as rest of plexieglass and to dimentions that fit into narrow spaces made by three sections you just set in place to make the four other openings.
Silicone in place as you see fit to make some 20 to 24 squares or retangle openeings.
Now you have lots an lots of places to hang your lures.
I cut small "V" in many places on top of plexieglass in middle of each open section....you can make a bunch of these an safely hang some 30 to 40 lures depending on size, girth an style.
Add a screwed down bungie type strap, rope or chunk of old leather for a carrying handle an your in like Flint.
Cheap, fun to make an lasts forever.
Can put away wet lures to dry in open air, takes a beating an you can see everything.
I have made six for my self over the years for myself and wife Bonnie Bean.
Have also made couple dozen and given away as fishen gifts to friends of big fish lures.
Kind of special feeling when you give something you made away and knowing it will be put to good use.
Very....special on other end also as friends enjoy it way more cause you took some time to make them...just for them.
Many ways to go here, just let yer mind wonder and have some fun.
Guide tested tuogh an Mallard Island Marauder approved.

Keep on Rocken!

Tommy

Musky Toms Guide Service

June 4, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterTom Wehler

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