Being a year-round sportsman can have its perks, but can also be problematic at times. Organization is one of the most important tasks of the outdoorsman, it will surely save you some searching and frustration in the future.
As the years go by, hunters and fishermen tend to buy enough gear so that things begin to pile up. Personally, by the end of deer season, it’s time to do some major cleaning before Christmas arrives. For years, I struggled with trying to organize my equipment, before I finally figured out a system. Things would tend to get piled in a storage area, which would have to be sorted through and reorganized the next year. This cost a lot of extra time and effort. I came to the realization that my piles weren’t getting any smaller, so I decided to do something about it.
About this time every year, I have begun to grow tired of tripping over the remnants of seasons past. Everything from fishing poles to camo clothes are strung in every direction. This is the time to gather up all that stuff, organized it, and pack away until next season. With the holidays rapidly approaching, you better get that junk out of the way before your ears are ringing with more than just silver bells.
Step one to getting all of your gear packed away is having space enough to do so. An eight-by-eight space just won’t cut it for someone like myself. That would likely only accommodate my ice fishing gear leaving no space for warm weather fishing equipment, turkey hunting supplies, bow hunting gear and apparel, gun hunting gear and clothing, predator hunting equipment, water fowl decoys, and finally topped off by several different types of blinds. Space is the key. If you have none, you must build some. Otherwise, you will surely become sick of tripping over the stuff, which could also have you changing your Facebook status to single.
The best way that I have found to combat the clutter is to organize by season. I purchased a bunch of storage totes, which I rotate between seasons. When deer season ends, I prepare for ice fishing and predator hunting. I gather up all of my warm weather fishing gear, and get it all into one spot. I then do the same with all of my turkey hunting supplies. The trick is separating the bins into two different seasons. I pull all of my ice fishing tackle and equipment out of the container, and replace it with my warm weather gear. I then do the same with predator and turkey gear. This allows you to rotate bins, which limits their numbers and conserves space. Deer and water fowl supplies are dealt with a bit differently.
Deer hunting gear has a bin all to itself, although it is separated between bow and gun season. When bow season approaches, I empty the bin and wash all of my early season gear. I then take the cold weather gear and organize it into a pile to be used later. At this point, the bin is empty, so I take it outside and fill it with leaves. I do this to de-scent it in preparation for clothing storage throughout the entire deer season. When season changes from bow to gun, I simply trade gear and continue hunting. A couple added benefits to using the bin system are that your gear stays scent free and dry in the back of a truck, and that you are less likely to leave a piece of gear home because it’s all in one spot. At the end of season, I pack all of my deer gear into the bin again for the next year.
Water fowling tends to be the most gear-orientated type of hunting out there. Besides needing blinds to hide from their detection, species related decoys take up a lot of space, also. To be honest I haven’t figured out a way to organize this gear inside. It takes up so much space that most serious waterfowlers buy an enclosed trailer to house it. That’s my plan for the future and happens to be the last step in organizing my gear. Out of sight out of mind, right?
I better get back to hunting, only a few days left until I have to pack things away for next year and pull out all of my ice fishing gear. The cool thing about life is that it’s a trip, although it’s not cool to trip over the utensils used in enjoying it.
Good wishes, happy holidays, and organize your gear before someone rings your silver bell.

Questions or comments about this article may be emailed to Sheldon at jsheldones@gmail.com.