Plano StowAway 4-By Honest Review: What Works and What Does Not

I bought the Plano Guide Series StowAway 4-By this spring, a few days before ice out, and it has been in my boat on every trip since. That is roughly forty outings, most of them for walleye and bass on the lakes around Brainerd, some of them with Karen up front working a jig along the weed line. Before this rack, my tackle lived in a milk crate. That is not an exaggeration. I had a plastic milk crate behind the middle bench with loose 3700 boxes stacked in it, and every time I turned the boat, the whole thing shifted. A box would slide out, hit the floor, and spill. I spent more time picking up spinnerbaits than fishing them. I tried a soft bag first, and it was better until everything settled to the bottom and I went back to digging. By May I was ready for something with a flat bottom, a handle, and a lid that stays put.

I am writing this because the product page tells you what the rack holds. It does not tell you how it behaves on the floor of a 16-foot aluminum boat when the wind kicks up, or what happens when rain sits on that clear top lid all afternoon. Here is the honest version up front. The StowAway 4-By is a rack that holds four standard 3700 utility boxes, with a clear DuraView lid over a top tray for the stuff you grab constantly. It is not waterproof. It is not bolted down. It does not lift your tackle to eye level. It sits on the floor and you carry it by the handle. Once you accept those limits, it does its job better than anything else I have tried. Here is what a full season taught me.

How I Have Used It

The rack went into the boat in May and stayed there all season. It rides on the floor in front of the middle bench, where I can reach it from the tiller seat without standing up. I carry it from the truck to the boat by the handle, and when it is full of four boxes and a top tray of gear, it is heavy enough that I am glad the walk to the boat ramp is short. The handle is molded into the frame, so it does not flop around the way a soft bag handle does.

My four 3700 boxes broke down like this. One for walleye jigs and plastic minnows, one for crankbaits and stickbaits, one for bass soft plastics and spinnerbaits, one for terminal tackle, hooks, split shot and swivels. The dividers in the 3700 boxes do the real organizing. The rack just keeps the four boxes stacked flat and stops them from sliding. That sounds minor. It is not. On a windy afternoon, a loose tackle box slides from one end of an aluminum boat to the other every time you turn, and you spend half the day chasing it.

The top tray holds the things I used five times a trip: a hook remover, needle nose pliers, spare spools of line, a small bottle of sunscreen, sunglasses in a hard case. The clear DuraView lid lets me see what is in the tray without opening it, which matters more than it sounds when your hands are wet and fish slimy. On a June morning on Mille Lacs, with a light chop and Karen catching walleyes faster than I could re-tie, that tray was the difference between staying on fish and fumbling around.

What Nobody Tells You About the StowAway 4-By

First, it is not waterproof. The marketing does not exactly lie about this, but it does not make it easy to find either. The lid keeps out a light sprinkle, but rain collects in the top tray and water will find its way in if the rack sits in standing water. I learned this on a July afternoon when a squall came through and I left the rack on the floor instead of sliding it under the front deck. The top tray had a quarter inch of water in it, and the boxes underneath were damp along the edges. Nothing was ruined, but I dried everything out that night and I have not made that mistake again.

Second, it does not raise anything to eye level. The rack sits on the floor, so you bend over to get into it. In my 16-foot boat that is fine. In a bigger boat with higher sides it would get old by the end of the day. The product photos show it on a workbench or a tailgate, and that is the honest best use for it. If you want your tackle at waist height, you need a mounted box or a bag that straps to a seat. This rack is not that.

Third, the clear lid scratches. After a season of sliding around the boat and getting stepped on once, the lid has light scratches across it. You can still see through it fine. It just will not stay crystal clear, and if you are the kind of person who likes gear to stay perfect, that will bother you more than it should. It has never bothered me, because I use the lid to see what is in the tray, not to admire the lid.

Fourth, the rack does not lock together as one solid unit. The four boxes sit in the frame and the top tray sits on top, but nothing clamps the stack together. That is fine on the floor of a boat. It would be a problem if you expected to hang the rack on a wall or carry it by the lid. Carry it by the handle, the way it is meant to be carried, and it behaves. The handle is a bare plastic bar with no padding. I have carried the rack a few hundred yards from truck to boat and it is fine. If you had to walk a half mile with it, you would want gloves. I do not carry it that far, so I do not count it as a real complaint.

The Latches and the Hardware

The part I was most worried about was the latches. A rack like this lives on a boat floor, which means it takes a beating. Every wave that slams the hull transfers straight into whatever is sitting on the floor. I expected at least one latch to pop open by August. None did. Forty trips, four boxes, two latches on each box, and I never found a lid open that I had not opened myself. The latches are simple plastic tabs with enough tension to hold, and they worked all season.

There was one day that tested them. We were coming back across the lake in a stiff wind, taking waves over the bow, and water was sloshing around the floor. When I got to the ramp and pulled the rack out, the boxes were still closed and dry on the inside. That was the day I stopped checking the latches every time the boat rocked.

The plastic itself has held up too. The rack has a couple of scuffs on the bottom from sliding across the boat floor and one scrape from a cooler, but no cracks. The handle is still solid. The hinge on the top lid is still tight. For a piece of plastic that spends its life getting bounced around, that is about all you can ask.

One more thing about fit. The rack is made for standard 3700 boxes, and there are a lot of brands that make 3700 boxes, not just Plano. The rack holds Plano boxes perfectly, and I have also used it with two off-brand 3700 boxes that fit fine. If you already own 3700 boxes, you do not need to buy new ones to use this rack.

Forty trips, four boxes, two latches on each box, and I never found a lid open that I had not opened myself.

What I Would Change

If I could change one thing, it would be the drainage. Water that gets into the top tray has nowhere to go, so it sits there until you tip the rack or take the lid off. A couple of small drain holes would fix that, and the fact that they are not there tells you the rack is meant for dry storage as much as boat use. I keep a rag in the top tray now, which is not a fix, just a habit.

The other tradeoff is the size. The rack takes up a real square of floor space. In my boat it fits in front of the bench and stays out of the way. In a 12-foot or 14-foot boat it would be in the way. If you fish out of a kayak or a tiny tin boat, this is too much rack. A soft bag that collapses flat would serve you better, and that is the honest tradeoff.

The third thing is minor, but I will mention it because it is the kind of detail nobody puts in a product description. The rack has no place to store a net or a rod. That is not its job, and I do not hold it against it, but if you are picturing a do-everything tackle station, this is not that. It holds boxes and a tray. That is the whole job, and it does the whole job well.

Alternatives I Considered

Before I bought the StowAway 4-By, I looked hard at soft tackle bags. A soft bag carries more and collapses when it is empty, which is nice for storage. But a soft bag has one problem I have never solved: everything settles to the bottom. You end up digging through a pile of plastics to find the one color you need. The rack keeps every box flat, and every box pulls out like a drawer. That is worth the floor space to me.

I also looked at the bigger Plano rack systems that hold six or eight boxes. I decided the 4-By was the right size for my boat, and after a season I still think that. More boxes means more weight and more floor space. Four boxes plus a top tray is the right amount for a day on the water. If I need more, I carry a fifth 3700 box loose behind the seat. The rack does not care.

Who This Is For

This rack is for the person who fishes out of a boat with a flat piece of floor to spare and already owns a collection of 3700 boxes. It is for the angler who is tired of tackle sliding around, tired of digging through a soft bag where everything sinks to the bottom, tired of buying the same jig twice because the one he owns is somewhere in the bottom of a tote. If you fish from a 16-foot aluminum boat like mine, or a bass boat, or even the back of a pickup at the ramp, the StowAway 4-By puts four boxes and a top tray in one place you can always find.

It is also for the person who does not want to remount his whole boat. This rack needs no screws, no tracks, no drilling. It sits on the floor. That was the whole appeal for me. I did not want to bolt a tackle station into my boat. I wanted something I could carry to the truck at the end of the day, and this is exactly that. Karen likes it too, because her jig box is one of the four and she can pull it out and set it on the bench next to her.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if you fish from a kayak or a canoe, where floor space is measured in inches. Skip it if you need your tackle at waist height, because this rack will have you bending over all day. Skip it if you regularly leave your tackle out in the weather, because it is not waterproof and no amount of hoping will make it so. And skip it if you are looking for a system that organizes itself. The rack holds boxes. You still have to sort your hooks.

I will also say this. If you already keep your 3700 boxes loose in a milk crate or a tote, this rack is a smaller step up than you might think. It does the same job, just neater. That is not a knock. It is the honest description of what it is: a simple rack that holds four boxes and one tray, built well enough to last a season on the water and, as far as I can tell, a lot more seasons after that.

At the end of the season I pulled the rack out of the boat, wiped it down, and set it on the basement shelf next to the ice rods. It will go back in the boat in May. That is the most honest praise I can give a piece of tackle: it earned its spot, and I am not looking to replace it.