Store your fishing tools on the back of your seat in a tool bucket organizer

I store my fishing tools in half of a nylon tool bucket organizer which is attached to the back of my kayak seat.  When I’m playing a fish, or holding down a thrashing fish between my legs with one hand, it’s very convenient to be able to reach behind my seat to grab a lip grabber, or a pair of pliers, or a fish club. I attach the tools to the organizer with retractors or cord, so I won’t lose them.  Here’s a couple pictures of my organizer:





Most hardware stores or lumberyards stock half a dozen different tool bucket organizers.  These organizers strap on the outside of a 5 gallon bucket, and contain a number of different size pockets for tools.  They are typically made out of heavy duty nylon.  Many of them contain two separate panels of pockets.  One panel is just about the size of the back of a kayak seat.  Chose an organizer which has pockets which are a suitable size for the kind of fishing tools you use.  Because you will be returning tools to the organizer behind your back, where you can’t see what you are doing, big pockets are better than small pockets.  Because you don’t want tools to fall out of the pockets, deep pockets are better than shallow pockets.  You should be able to buy a suitable organizer for $15-$20.

Every kayak seat is different, but you should be able to devise a simple way to attach a tool organizer to the back of your kayak seat.  With a speedy stitcher, I modified the strap which was intended to hold my organizer on a bucket to hold the organizer on the back of my kayak seat.  Another simple option is to screw the organizer on to the back of your seat with stainless steel bolts, fender washers, and lock nuts.

If you don’t attach the tools to the organizer in some way, they will quickly end up on the bottom of the body of water in which you are fishing.  You can attach them to the organizer with lengths of cord, but over the course of a day, the cords can get pretty tangled.  You can reduce the tangle problems by attaching your tools to the organizer with heavy duty fishing retractors.  Retractors with long cords or cables are better than retractors with short cords or cables.  If the cord in the retractor isn’t long enough to reach around your seat to where you will be working on fish or tackle, you can extend the retractor cord with a short piece of cord or shock cord.

An advantage of this tool organizer is that it keeps all your tools together.  At the beginning of the day, all you need to do is plop the seat into your kayak and clip it in place, and all your tools are in your boat.  That is a lot easier than remembering to bring four or five different tools, and clipping each tool to your kayak separately.  And at the end of the day, all you have to do is unclip your seat and throw it in your vehicle.  After forgetting my paddle leash a couple of times, I now leave that permanently attached to my seat as well.

Nice job! Thanks for sharing

One of the things I love about this community....the neverending ingenuity!

 

Very cool. Looks like it works well!

I like it. 

I reduced the leash tangle problems with my fishing tool holder by replacing a couple of the cord leashes with retractors.

 

Clean and simple.  That's a great way to go!  I've been just setting my lip grippers behind my seat I need to do something like this.   

Thanks for sharing!   

I like that, great job, I am going to make a version of that for my yak...thanks for the posting and pictures...roger

Do you find that it hangs too low with stuff between your lower back and the molded seat portion of the kayak?  Anytime I've had anything fall back there accidentally, the bump annoyed me.  Are there any shorter options that don't hang so low?

-Allen

Do you find that it hangs too low with stuff between your lower back and the molded seat portion of the kayak?  Anytime I've had anything fall back there accidentally, the bump annoyed me.  Are there any shorter options that don't hang so low?

With my particular kayak, bucket organizer, and tools, and the way I have my seat adjusted, that hasn't been a problem, but I can see how on some kayaks you could have tools jabbing you in the back all day.  Perhaps the solution is to choose a bucket organizer which is fairly short from top to bottom, and to mount it as high as you can on your seat.  For example, my organizer is held onto my seat by straps that run around the sides of the seat.  If I wanted to mount the organizer a couple of inches higher, I would melt holes through the top of the seat and the top of the organizer with a soldering iron or a heated nail, and attach the organizer to the seat with a couple of small stainless steel bolts, fender washers, and lock nuts.