Trolling Spoon Storage

trolling spoons arranged in foam

* This page contains affiliate links. The Great Lakes Fisherman may earn a commission on items purchased through these links. For more on this, please click here.

There are storage trays of all shapes and sizes to accommodate all styles and sizes of spoon.  But these boxes are typically designed to maximize space.  This is great for storing a lot of spoons in small places, especially when space on a boat is at a premium.  However, there are a couple of disadvantages to this.

First, when the spoons are jammed together in a tackle tray, they tend to get scratched.  The sharp hooks will do a number on the paint job of the spoons each and every time you are moving.  Think about how much time that tackle is bouncing around both down the road on the trailer as well as the entire time out on the water. This will lead to having to repaint or replace them much sooner than you would need to otherwise.

The second disadvantage to this is that when these spoons are jammed together, it can be difficult to find the color combo you are looking for.  We all know how frustrating it can be when our spoons are stuck together in clumps and we’re trying to sort through them to find the right one.  There has to be a better way, right?

Here, I will go over our favorite way to store our trolling spoons.  While it takes up a bit more space, it keeps the spoons from scratching each other as well as making it super easy to find the color combo you’re looking for quickly.  All you will need is a storage tray that is deep enough to store the spoons vertically (about 6″ deep) and some polyethylene foam (or some other sort of high density foam material).

Step 1: Get a Sheet of Foam

A sheet of polyethylene foam can often be salvaged from heavy duty packaging.  If you don’t have any from a recent delivery, you can purchase a sheet of it online.  Polyethylene is what pool noodles are made of and is what we prefer, but any type of tough foam should work. We prefer a sheet that is 2″ thick, but you can probably get away with a little less.

Step 2: Choose a Storage Tray

The storage tray can be sized to fit your needs.  The one we use is about 16″ x 23″.  This holds our entire collection of spoons.  Admittedly, we have a modest collection of spoons (about 100), and the tray size you select should accommodate your space/storage space.  For handling, we don’t recommend a tray much larger than this, but you can always get a second or third tray, if necessary.

Step 3: Cut the Foam

First, simply cut the foam to fit the bottom of the tray.  Next, cut a gridwork of slits in the foam to accommodate your spoons.  The slit should be slight less than the spoon width so that you get a tight fit.  Remember, you can always cut more, but you can’t cut less!

You should space them according to the sized spoons you will be storing.  For salmon, we mostly troll magnum spoons, so we spaced each slit about 1.5″ apart in both directions.   At 1.5″ spacing, we get about 56 magnum spoons per square foot. This equates to over 140 spoons in the 16″ x 23″ tray!  Of course, they can be spaced closer together for smaller spoons allowing room for even more spoons.  Optionally, you also can secure the foam to the bottom of the tray using a few pieces of double-stick tape, although, we did not find this necessary.

Step 4: Install LED Blacklight Strip Tape

To allow your glow-in-the-dark spoons to be activated and ready to go when you reach the fishing grounds, consider installing some LED blacklight strips in the inside of the lid.  The power cord can by run through a hole punched in the lid, or simply run in between the lid and container (just be sure not to pinch it). These can then be rigged to plug into your boats 12 VDC to allow your glow-in-the-dark spoons to activate while you are in transit!