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Pete Gluszek remembers those bass club days as a non-boater when he struggled to carry 100 pounds of tackle and 10 rods for more than 100 yards to the boat launch.

“My shoulders were burning,” recalled Gluszek, a two-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier from Franklinville, N.J. “That was a workout in itself. My biggest problem was if I brought too many rods they would always tangle together. I was always wrestling with my rods and I would have so many with me that I hardly had any room for myself in the boat. And my tackle bag would be so stuffed that when I opened a compartment 15 different colors of soft plastics would pop out at me and then I couldn’t find what I was looking for.”

Competing from rear deck is tough enough but it becomes even more difficult since the non-boater has to pare his tackle selection. I remember my non-boater days in the Eldon Bass Club when paranoia would strike while I stocked my tackle bag in preparation for a tournament. I always feared my partner would catch bass on a lure in a certain color that I didn’t have, so I would cram my tackle box full until I could hardly close it.

This non-boater paranoia can be alleviated if you know how to select and organize your tackle for the next tournament. “We always tend to over bring. It gets to be too cumbersome and hurts your organization. If you’ve got more stuff than you can carry in one trip, you’ve got to cut it down,” Gluszek said.

Fellow Bassmaster Tour competitor Brian Snowden suggests a non-boater can still have plenty of confidence with a limited supply of tackle. “I never believe that there is one special lure,” he said. “If you are in the right place and have a lure that runs the right depths, you should get bit even if it is a different brand name lure. I believe there is a lure that fish might like better than yours and your partner might get three bites compared to your one bite, but in the back of the boat it doesn’t take as many bites to win if you are fishing a non-boater division.”

Non-boaters can make sound tackle choices if they heed the old Boy Scout motto of “being prepared.” In most bass clubs, the non-boaters get a big boost in choosing their tackle since they know who their partners will be in advance of the tournament.

Practicing with your partner is the best way for a non-boater to make tackle choices. “If you go practice with him the week before the tournament you kind of get a good idea of what is going to happen. You can put some of the tackle in that you know you will need and take out the other stuff you aren’t going to need,” suggested Snowden, a former Missouri Lakes Bass Club member.

If you are unable to practice, try calling your partner to find out what you need to bring. “Spend some time asking some very pertinent questions,” Gluszek recommended. “You can get a good feel by asking the right questions about the water depth you will be fishing, if will you be fishing around grass or with moving baits or topwaters. So then you know what to bring and what not to bring.”

Doing some homework can make your tackle choices easier, especially if you will be fishing unfamiliar waters. Looking at a fishing log to see how you caught fish in past tournaments on a particular lake can help you select tackle for your next club event there.

“Our club would actually write a log in its newsletter with the water temperature and what the fish were doing that tournament,” recalled Snowden, who used this information to select his tackle for the next year’s tournament on the same lake. The Missouri angler also suggests you can gather helpful information from fishing reports on the Internet and at various local bait-and-tackle shops.

Now that you’re ready to select your tackle for the next club tournament, let’s take a look at what the pros would opt for if they were in your situation.

Lures Snowden would choose some basic lures that produce just about any time and anywhere. His first choice would be a plastic tube in green pumpkin and black neon hues. “They work throughout the United States very, very consistently,” he said.

Other standard lures he would stock include a couple of medium-diving crankbaits such as the Bomber Fat Free Shad and Fat Free Shad Junior in shad patterns, fire tiger or citrus shad colors and a wide-wobbling crankbait such as the Cotton Cordell Wiggle-O in chromeand-black, green crawfish or red crawfish. If he knew bass were holding at depths of 3- to 5 feet, Snowden would take some Rebel Wee-R, Cotton Cordell Big O or a square-billed crankbait in chromeand- black, shad patterns, chartreuse-and black or chartreuse-and-blue.

Spinnerbaits are also productive in tournaments throughout the year. Snowden would narrow his choices to models with chartreuse-and-white or salt-and-pepper skirts in increments from 1/4- to 1/2-ounces, along with a couple of double willowleaf blades or Colorado/willowleaf combos in gold and silver. He also would bring extra gold and silver willowleaf, Colorado and Indiana blades in number 4 and 5 sizes to increase his blade bait options. A nonboater should also carry an ample supply of jigs either in a ball head style such as the Jewel Eakins’ Pro Model Jig or a standard model like the Booyah Boo Jig. Snowden would stock the regular style jig in 3/8-, 1/2- and 3/4-ounce sizes. His color choices for the finesse jig would be brown-and-black, black-and-red or black-and-blue; he would opt for white, black-and-blue or brown for the bigger jigs. The Missouri angler recommends plastic trailers such as the 2.75-inch Yum Chunk for most jigs and Yum 3-inch Big Claw for the finesse models.

Seasonal patterns also dictate lure choices for certain tournaments. Snowden suggests non-boaters should bring some 1/2-ounce jigging spoons and 5-inch curly-tail plastic grubs (smoke-and-silver flash) with 1/4- to 3/8-ounce round jigheads for fishing clear water in the colder months. Plastic worms are essential for summertime tournaments, so he recommends 7- and 10-inch Yum Ribbontail worms in plum, tequila sunrise and red shad hues.

A buzzbait is a good choice for fall tournaments. Snowden would carry black and white buzzers in 1/4- and 3/8-ounce sizes. The Missouri pro also suggests putting a couple of topwater plugs in your bag. “I would always have no matter what time of the year a Rebel Pop-R and a Zara Spook. I’ve seen at Lake of the Ozarks we’ve caught them on Rebel Pop-Rs in 42-degree water in February,” Snowden said.

A non-boater should carry a limited amount of hooks and weights for his soft plastics. Snowden would bring 5 to 10 hooks in 3/0, 4/0 (extra wide gap style for flipping tubes) and 5/0 and leadhead jigs in increments of 1/8- to 3/8 ounces. He also recommends stocking five to 10 Bullet Weights in 1/4- or 3/8-ounce sizes.

Gluszek advises non-boaters to simply stock their tackle boxes with two types of lures. Any lures they have confidence in should be their top picks along with finesse baits. “When a boater is really getting after it with a spinnerbait, jig or crankbait, the non-boater should always have a stock of some type of finesse bait that he has a lot of confidence in, such as a finesse worm or a Senko. A Senko is probably the best allaround bait that a non-boater can have because it is so versatile. You can fish behind a guy and still catch a ton of fish with it,” Gluszek said.

Rods and Reels “The biggest fear I had was not having the right type of rod,” said Snowden of his non-boater days.

The tournament pro recommends a non-boater should limit his rod choices to two 7-foot and two 6 1/2-foot casting (all in medium-heavy action models) and one spinning rod. Snowden opts for high-speed bait-casting reels (6.2:1 gear ratio) filled with monofilament line in 12-, 14-, 17- and 20-pound test and a spinning reel spooled with 8-pound test.

Gluszek suggests carrying a maximum of six rods with you to a tournament. “If you can do less than that you will be doing yourself a favor.” He advises choosing multipurpose bait-cast rods such as a 7-foot medium-heavy model that can be used for pitching and flipping, dragging a Carolina rig or cranking a spinnerbait rather than a specialty rod such as a 7 1/2-foot flipping stick. A spinning rod should also be a standard choice for non-boaters.

“Always be prepared to go that finesse route. You find yourself in some awkward situations where a bait-cast rod can be very cumbersome to use when you have very little real estate to work with,” Gluszek said.

A spinning outfit allows a non-boater to skip lures under obstacles or flip and pitch to difficult targets without the worry of back-lashing. The New Jersey pro recommends keeping your reel choices simple.

“Find a reel you are comfortable with and buy it across the board. I try to maintain the same reel on every single rod so when I pick up a different rod with a different lure I won’t be fighting backlash problems as much,” Gluszek said.

His line choices are the same as Snowden’s (8- on spinning gear and 12-, 14-, 17- and 20-pound for bait-casting reels) “Using those five line diameters, you can handle pretty much anything that will happen that day.”

Accessories “I wouldn’t count on a boater having anything, so I try to be as self-sufficient as possible,” Gluszek said. Whenever he fishes from the back of the boat, Gluszek stocks his bag with a pair of pliers, scissors, culling floats, Super Glue, dipping dyes, sunglasses and sunscreen.

Snowden recommends a non-boater should at least carry his own needle nose pliers and line clippers. If you can fit it in your bag, you can bring about whatever you want to the next tournament.

“Most boaters don’t mind if you can get it all in one bag but if you bring more than one it gets to be a problem,” Snowden said.

Remember too that it is an even bigger problem for you because you’re the one who has to lug those bulging bags of lures and dozen rods to your partner’s boat.  BCD  

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