Plano StowAway 4-By vs a Soft Tackle Bag: Which Is Worth It?

I have run both a soft tackle bag and the Plano StowAway 4-By on the same Minnesota lakes this season, and the honest answer is that they are not competing for the same job. The Plano StowAway is a hard rack that holds four 3700 utility boxes under a clear DuraView lid, and mine rode on the floor of my 16-foot aluminum boat from ice-out in early May through the last open-water trip in October. The soft bag I compared it against is the one I carried for years before I retired, and it still rides behind the seat of my 2013 F-150 for the days I fish from the bank. But for the way most of us fish from a boat, the hard box is the better buy. The short answer is simple: if you fish from a boat and you are tired of unzipping three pockets to find the one jig you know is in there, get the Plano. If you hike a mile to every spot, keep the soft bag.

Here is the moment that decided it for me. One evening in late May, water temp around 58 degrees and a northwest wind at 12, I wanted a chartreuse jig head and a white twister tail to match what the walleyes were eating on Gull Lake. With the soft bag, that meant opening the top pocket, then the side pocket, then the bottom compartment where the spinnerbaits had slid under a loose spool of line. By the time I found the jig, the boat had drifted off the breakline. With the StowAway, I pulled the labeled jig box, and had the jig tied on before Karen had her rod out of the rod locker. That one evening summed up the whole season, and it is the reason this comparison is not as close as the marketing makes it look.

	Plano StowAway 4-By	Soft Tackle Bag
Organization	Four 3700 utility boxes plus a top tray, top tray visible through the clear lid	Pockets and dividers, but small items slide and hide at the bottom
Water resistance	Hard plastic sheds splashes, but it is not waterproof, keep it out of standing water	Fabric soaks up water and stays damp for days
Carrying comfort	Single handle, fine for the short walk from truck to boat	Shoulder strap frees both hands for a long hike
Fits small boats	Rigid footprint on the floor, about the size of a case of soda	Squishes under a seat or into a bow locker
Durability	Hard plastic takes years of banging around a boat	Fabric tears, zippers fail, seams pull
Price	Straightforward construction, usually the cheaper buy	More pockets and zippers usually cost more
Best for	Boat anglers who want lures sorted and easy to grab	Bank anglers who hike and want both hands free

How I Used the Plano StowAway 4-By This Season

I bought the StowAway this spring and set it up the way most of us actually fish, not the way the catalog pictures show it. Four 3700 utility boxes, and I marked the edge of each lid with a permanent marker: walleye jigs in chartreuse, white, and firetiger, bass plastics and worms, spinnerbaits and shallow cranks, and terminal tackle with hooks, swivels, and split shot. The top storage under the clear lid took my pliers, a spool of 8 lb monofilament, a hook sharpener, and a small first aid kit. Everything I reach for on a typical evening on the water was in one place, and the lid closes over it so nothing bounces out when the boat rocks over a wake.

The latches worked all season, and I checked them every time I lifted the box. No issues at all. I am not easy on gear. The box rode on the floor between the bench seats, took spray from the bow on choppy days, and got kicked by boots more times than I can count. The clear DuraView lid picked up a few scratches from sliding under the seat, but it never cracked and never fogged up so bad I could not see the lures. That visibility is the whole point of this box, and it held up for a full season of hard use. I would call that a fair test.

One limit I want to be honest about, because every honest review has a limit: it is not waterproof. A thunderstorm caught us on the west end of the lake in July, and a couple inches of rain sat in the bottom of the boat before we could bail it. The bottom of the rack got wet, and the utility boxes inside stayed dry because they sit up in the rack, but I would not leave it sitting in standing water overnight. It is not a dry box. It is an organized box. If you keep it out of the bilge and off a wet floor, it does its job exactly as advertised.

One Saturday in August, Karen and I ran up to the north end of the lake to chase smallmouth bass off the rock piles. The wind was up and the boat was bouncing. I needed to switch from a topwater to a drop shot rig, and I did it without ever taking my eyes off the water. I set the StowAway on the bench seat, opened the lid, pulled the bass plastics tray, and had the rig tied on in under a minute. Karen said it was the fastest she has ever seen me change lures, and she has been watching me fish for over 30 years. That is the kind of thing the soft bag never gave me.

What I Learned Comparing Them Side by Side

I carried a soft bag for years before I bought the StowAway, so this is not a guess. The bag I used has three main pockets, a row of small elastic slots on each side, and a shoulder strap. It holds roughly the same amount of tackle as the StowAway, which is exactly why the comparison is fair. The difference is not capacity. It is how fast you can find a specific lure and put your hands on it. The bag hides things. The hard box shows you everything.

The soft bag's problem showed up the same way every trip. A spinnerbait would slip out of its slot and fall to the bottom of the main pocket. A pack of hooks would slide under a spool of line. After a month, the bag was a jumble that I had to empty onto the boat seat to find anything, and emptying it onto a wet seat in a light rain is exactly the kind of thing that makes a guy miss a good bite. The StowAway never did that to me. The boxes snap into the rack and stay put, so the organization I set up in April was still the organization I had in October.

There is also the wet fabric problem. A soft bag that has been sitting in the bottom of a boat soaks up spray and dew, and it stays damp for days. I left the bag in the boat overnight once, and the next morning the pockets were cold and clammy. The Plano StowAway sheds water off its hard surfaces and dries in minutes. On a Minnesota lake, where the dew is heavy and the mornings are cool, that matters more than you would think.

Where the Plano StowAway 4-By Wins

The clear lid is the whole argument. I have a lower back that reminds me every morning about 30 years of climbing utility poles, so bending over and pawing through a soft bag on a moving boat floor is exactly what I do not want to do. With the StowAway, I can stand at the bench seat, look down through the DuraView lid, and see exactly which tray holds the jigs I want. I grab the box by the handle, lift it onto the seat, open the lid, and pick the lure. Thirty seconds, done. With the soft bag, that same task was always a two-hand, head-down dig that ended with me pulling everything out.

Organization also holds. In a soft bag, the divider pockets shift, small boxes slide under bigger ones, and by August the bag is a jumble you have to empty to find anything. The StowAway keeps its structure because the four 3700 boxes snap into the rack and the top tray is fixed. Nothing moves. I pulled the same box out of the boat in October, and the jig tray was exactly where I left it in May, with the same chartreuse jigs in the same slots. For a guy who fishes two or three evenings a week, that consistency is worth more than any other feature on the box.

Protection is the other place the hard box wins, and it matters more than most people think. In a soft bag, treble hooks from one crankbait bury into the body of the next one, and soft plastics melt together in the heat of a truck cab. In the StowAway, each 3700 box has its own dividers and its own lid, so the hooks stay in their own slots and the plastics stay in their own packs. I did not lose a single lure to hook damage all season, and I cannot say that about any soft bag I have owned.

Where a Soft Tackle Bag Wins

The soft bag wins the moment you have to walk. If I were hiking a mile down a riverbank, the StowAway would beat my hand numb by the halfway point. The bag rides on your shoulder, leaves both hands free for a rod and a net, and carries its weight against your hip instead of hanging off one arm. That is a real advantage, and I will not pretend otherwise. When I bank fish, which I do a few times a year on the Mississippi backwaters near Brainerd, I take the soft bag out of the truck and leave the StowAway in the boat.

The bag also fits places a hard box will not go. The StowAway is a rigid rectangle, and it takes a rigid footprint about the size of a case of soda, and it does not squish. The soft bag will slide under a boat seat, wedge into a bow locker, or lie flat behind the seat of my F-150. If your boat storage is a shallow compartment or an odd-shaped space under the console, a soft bag conforms to it and the hard box does not. That is the one practical reason a boat angler might still choose the bag, and I understand it, even if it is not my situation.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the Plano StowAway 4-By if you fish from a boat, want to see your lures at a glance, and are tired of emptying a soft bag to find the one spinnerbait that slipped to the bottom. That describes most walleye and bass anglers I know, including me. It organized a full season for me, the latches held, and the clear lid earned its keep on every single trip. I rate it 8.7 out of 10, which is the highest I have given any tackle storage I have owned.

If you are strictly a bank angler who hikes to every spot, or if your boat has a storage compartment that a rigid box will not fit, the soft bag is the honest answer and I would not argue with you. For everyone else, the Plano is the better tool. It sat on my boat floor from ice-out to late fall, kept my lures sorted through a summer of thunderstorms and rough water, as long as it stayed out of standing water, and I would buy it again tomorrow.