Organizing Your Garage:
Camping and Fishing Gear

As you are organizing your garage, if you love to camp or fish, you may find that you have more gear than you expected!

And when you want to get going for a trip, it's so nice to be able to easily find and pack what you need!

It takes three steps to effectively organize your camping and fishing gear: start by clearing out any equipment that you either don't use or is no longer in good working order, then organize what's left, and finally, create a simple way to maintain the order you have created.

First, Unclutter:

The first step in organizing your garage storage of camping and fishing gear is what I call the 'unclutter' phase:

• Gather all of your gear together in one place so you can see what you have.
• Sort the gear into categories:
• flashlights, lamps, batteries
• tents and tent accessories
• campfire tools and accessories
• cooking equipment and cooking utensils
• dishes, cups, knives, eating utensils
• water bottles/bladders, water purification equipment
• backpacks
• sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and related gear
• folding chairs, folding tables, and other camping furniture
• first aid gear
• fishing rods, reels
• fishing lures, hooks, bobbers, tackle box
• camping or fishing clothes and protective gear
• other specialty gear
• Going through each category, one at a time, get rid of any equipment that you don't use, don't love, don't really need, or that is broken or unusable.

Second, Organize:

Once you have gathered and sorted your gear into categories and gotten rid of as much as possible, it's time to organize what's left.

One great, super easy way to organize your gear is to use large, plastic storage tubs with lids.

Use one tub or bin per category; for example, put all of your cooking equipment and utensils in one bin, put your dishes, cups, and eating utensils in another, and so on. The bins can be easily labeled with a waterproof marker (and if you use clear tubs you can see what's in them).

The key is to not start mixing different categories in the bins, even if you have some extra room at the top. Keep to the categories, and it will be SO much easier to maintain your bins and find what you want easily and quickly.

Once you have organized your bins by categories, you can stack them on shelves in one section of your garage.

Organizing your garage for fishing gear follows the sample principles...choose containers that make it easy to find and store your lures, hooks, and other gear.

Small plastic containers with individual compartments work great for holding and separating smaller items, while a fishing-rod holder attached to a wall in the garage will keep your rods all in one safe place.

When you get ready for a camping or fishing trip, all you need to do is pull out the bins you need.
 

Third, Transform:

The key to organizing is to create a system that is basically fool-proof in its simplicity. When you create a 'home' for each category of item, the trick is to put things back when you're done using them.

Organizing your garage to make it easy to get at your gear (and to put it back when you're done) makes all the difference in the world in having fun with your sport!


And when you're ready, move on to Organizing Your Garage: Miscellanous "Stuff".

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