We gave Pete Utschig from Phase Gear six surfcasters' plug bags and didn't tell him who owned them. The idea was simple. Look at each bag, talk about what's inside, and try to guess the owner. It turned into a pretty good lesson on packing a striper bag, with a lot of laughs along the way.

You can watch the whole thing in the video above. Here are the parts worth remembering.

Cover the water column

Pete said it on almost every bag. Carry something for the bottom, something for the middle, and something for the top. Jigs and bucktails down low. Swimming plugs and soft plastics through the middle. Needles, pencils, and topwater up high. If a fish can eat it somewhere in that range, you want a plug for it.

You don't need a thousand plugs

The bags Pete liked best were not the most crowded ones. They just had enough to cover top to bottom in colors the angler actually trusted. Stuff fifteen plugs in a tube and you spend half the night picking trebles out of your hand. As Pete put it, you end up looking like Edward Scissorhands.

The plugs that showed up again and again

• Glide baits are still hot. The Berkley Chop Block came up a lot because it gets you in the glide game without the $90 to $150 price tag. Pete's trick is to take the rear hook off, beef up the front treble, and add a little weight to the tail so it still swims right.
• The Redfin. If the bag belongs to a Rhode Island guy, there is a Redfin in it. Every time.
• The weightless Sluggo. Fished completely wrong, by Pete's own admission, and still out-catching everyone. Dig through our soft plastics.
• Bucktails and soft plastics for the bottom and lower column.
• Needlefish, darters, and pencil poppers for distance and up top.

Six bags, six guys

Half the fun was watching Pete call people out by their plugs.

• The all white bag, with the running joke that every plug is a good color as long as it is white.
• Coby's bag which has a suspicious amount of Frank's plugs
• Frank's bag, which covered every water column in two small tubes and leaned on that weightless Sluggo.
• The shallow water herring bag, packed with blues and whites for one specific tide.
• Wombat's bag, full of big plugs, big glides, and bolt cutters for when a hook ends up in the wrong place.
• Chris Voorhees' bag, with plugs so big Pete calls them bullies because they want the tube to themselves.
• Peter's bag, a clean daytime topwater setup built around the Flying Squid.

Building your own

Start at the bottom and work up. Jigs or bucktails for the bottom, weightless soft plastics and a swimming plug or two for the middle, needles and pencils and a topwater for up high. Keep your colors to the ones you actually fish with confidence, store it all in tubes, and try not to overpack.

One more thing Pete hammered on. Swim a new plug before you take it out fishing. Change a hook or a split ring and it can swim completely differently, so test it in a tank or a pool first.

Get the gear

Most of what Pete went through is on the wall and online at The Saltwater Edge, and you can find Phase Gear at phasegear.com.

Like Pete said at the end, support the people who support the sport, and keep fish in the water. That is the only way any of us keep doing this. See you out there.