Over on Twitter, I recently had a few requests to do a post on how to straighten swimbait tails. I find this happens mostly in the summer time when rod lockers heat up. The next thing you know half of your swimbait box looks like a drunken Twister game.

The process of straightening is very easy: all you need is a pot with water and a stove. Soft plastic swimbaits are made of materials that turns into liquid when heated. Boiling water is just under the temp that will remelt the plastic into its liquid state. Once you have heated some water to the boiling point on your stove, simply dip you swimbait tails for about 10 seconds at a time. Most of the time they will straighten simply by their own weight. Sometimes they will need to be bent in the opposite way slightly – just be careful in doing this to avoid breaking the tails.

To avoid bent tails from happening, what you have to do is try and keep your swimbaits in an orderly fashion in the first place. I am not a fan of hanging swimbait boxes. I think they are a waste of time, money and space in your boat. I realize swimbaits are expensive but come on! I think if people spent half the time fishing these baits as they do looking at them. . .  ok I'll stop right there! My favorite swimbait box is actually from OSH Hardware it is a from a company called Akromils (part number 74-090). I use this to store almost all of my bigger baits, hard and soft.