These ice chests have generally worked out well.The biggest drawback so far is that they are not watertight. The lids are a simple friction fit, and a direct shot of water on the seam can result in water inside. Another minor issue is that they need a more rigid lid. We might add some 1/2" plywood with custom cushions to the lids later.

In front, we used an Igloo 120 quart cooler as a fish box. This ice chest sits directly behind the casting platform, and in front of the console seat. We use shock cord to keep it centered. We can also replace it with a 72 quart version which is closer to the width of the console.

This ice chest also needs a more rigid top, but it is more watertight because the lid has latches and a deeper groove in the top.

Both ice chests are remarkably effective at retaining cold. A 20 lb bag of ice in the larger chest has minimal melting at the end of the day, unless it's extremely warm. Fish packed in the cooler with salt water and ice are almost too cold to hold at the end of the day.

• The Luggage Rack
  Every time we've been on a center console, if there isn't under-deck storage, everything winds up on the seat in front of the console, or loose on the deck. Often things fall off, or get underfoot. To combat this, we decided to build a removable rack that mounts in front of the console.
  
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  The first pass of the rack was built out of schedule 40 PVC pipe, mainly to get an idea of the proper dimensions. By making it fairly narrow, we left enough room on the sides so that the vertical rod racks on the console could still be used. This left about 28" of usable shelf length. By spacing the shelves about 14" apart vertically, there was enough room left for fairly sizeable bags.
  
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  The PVC version worked out pretty well. Of course, it didn't last very long in rough water. After a couple of trips in 6' short period swells, the end result was this:
  
  We had a friend of ours with a machine shop put together the same basic rack in SS tubing, with some minor tweaks in dimensions. The result is shown below.
  
  One of the things we changed in the SS version was to lower the overall height. The PVC version was too tall, requiring us to remove the rack everytime the boat went into the garage. So we had our friend shorten the SS version enough so that the rack could stay in place all the time. Or so we thought...
  
  
  
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  As it turns out, we made the SS version about 1" too high. Now the top edge of the rack clears the upper tension bar on the garage door, but catches the lower garage door tension bar by about an inch.
  
  We couldn't raise the garage door any more, and we couldn't shorten the legs of the rack any more. In the end, we put together a couple of simple slider gadgets that we place on the top front crossbar of the rack. When we drive out, these sliders contact the garage door tension bar, and as we continue to drive slowly forward, pop the door up an inch or so without us having to lift the door.
  
  As far as other improvements go, it turns out we made the bottom shelf a bit too low. In its current position, the bottom shelf prevents us from fully opening the lid of the compartment beneath the console seat.
  
  
• Ye Old Milk Crate
  Talk about time-tested technology...But there's something to be said for the milk crate, even if they don't use them to deliver milk anymore. They're undeniably tough, UV-resistant, drain instantly, and are well ventilated. Just be careful about the ones purchased at "foo-foo" decorator stores like ...well - you know the culprits. Make sure they are heavy duty and water, gas, and UV-resistant, otherwise they may disintegrate in long-term use
  

Everything in a skiff will ultimately get wet or damp. As far as your gear goes, the only question is whether or not you need something to be kept "really, really dry" (waterproof), or are OK with "pretty dry most of the time" (water-resistant).

In our bass boat, we kept our tackle in Plano 3700 clear plastic boxes and Tackle Logic folders / pouches, and just tossed them into the storage compartments. No need for a separate tackle box unless we were fishing from a friend's boat.

Boating gear wound up in compartments under the bench seat, in the bow anchor locker, or in a rear storage locker.

Most of those choices are not available in Toy Boat 2. The front bow compartment is pretty large, but is dominated by our much bigger anchor, 300 feet of primary anchor rode + chain, the secondary anchor and 200 feet of rode + chain, and the boat fenders. The small ice chests on the stern don't have enough room to carry the amount of tackle we normally lug around, and the big ice chest in front is for fish. So we were stuck with leaving all of our tackle above-decks in the luggage rack.

We wanted to keep using the clear Plano boxes for most fishing tackle, rather than hard tackle boxes, so we decided to buy water-resistant or water-proof tackle bags to hold them. We started with a couple of the West Marine tackle bags shown to the right. These are pretty large, front-opening bags, with a stiff bottom, and a vinyl-coated shell that sheds water.

These bags were OK, but there were a few issues:

• The front opening design did not work well with our luggage rack shelf design.
  
  
• They were several inches shorter than the shelves, leaving a fair amount of wasted space per shelf.
  
  
• Surprisingly, the zippers are metal, and rust / get stuck.
  

We searched around some more, but couldn't find a good match among the bags that could hold the 3700s. We prefer having the boxes flat in the bag (as shown in the picture to the right),  but just couldn't find a good design. We decided to switch to the 3600 series boxes, which are shorter and narrower, and found a few possibilities.

One thing we wanted to avoid was a box that stored the 3600s vertically on one end, like the bag pictured to the left. The reason is that when you store things like flies or soft baits in boxes stored on end, they usually settle in the bottom end of the box, and everything get squished / warped / disheveled.

If these same boxes are stored on one side, like the box pictured to the right, things work out OK, although you can still get hooks and other small items migrating between compartments.

In the end, we wound up with a Cabela's Denny Brauer Signature Series Magnum bag. Sizewise, it worked out perfectly. Although designed to fit eight 3700 boxes on-end, it can accomodate twelve 3600s laying on their sides, while leaving room in the top of the bag for miscellaneous other items, such as a camera.

It has a ton of outside storage compartments for things like leader spools, sunglass cases, etc. It has a hard waterproof bottom, a water-resistant body, and a mesh map pocket on top. The zippers are not waterproof, but it is reasonably water resistant. If caught in a downpour, we would probably cover the bag in a plastic garbage bag, just to be sure.

For boating gear, we initially decided to break up our gear into three small bags: one for a "Ditch Bag", one for extra clothes, and the third for general gear, such as binoculars, fishing licenses and permits.

We tried several different solutions, looking for the right combination of space and resistance to the elements. We originally started using these Plano bags for clothes and general gear. The bag material is waterproof, but the zipper is not. However, the zipper is covered by a large storm flap, so these bags do a good job of keeping things dry.: 

We selected the West Marine Clear Dry Bag pictured to the left for the Ditch Bag. It is completely water-tight, and the clear sides make locating thing easier.

The three bags fit snugly on the seat of the console, on the bottom of the luggage rack. However, the Plano bags turned out to be a little too long for the seat. They hung out far enough in front to interfere with opening the front ice chest, so we found a similar, shorter bag - the Bass Pro Shops "Extreme" Boat Bag in small size (pictured to the right). These bags appear to be constructed of the same material as the Planos, and the zipper is also covered by a large storm flap.

These bags performed adequately, especially given the cost, and we continue to use them today. But the quality of some of the components leaves a bit to be desired. The pull tabs on the zippers are all gone now, and had to be replaced with parachute cord. On one of the bags, the black color from the cordura-covered plastic bottom tray bled onto the seat upholstery when it got wet! We tried to return the bag in question, and that's where we ran into the issue of Internet and brick-and-mortar stores not being the same, even when they are owned by the same company (see our article on Rigging in Issue 2).

As for the ditch bag, we had to get rid of the West Marine Clear Dry Bag early on - the bag got punctured by a hook, and we were never able to get a good patch on the clear vinyl (probably just needed to try harder, but it's too late now!). Since we couldn't get the bag patched,  we decided to forego the clear dry bag approach, and moved everything to another Bass Pro Shops Extreme Boat Bag.

After using the BPS Extreme Boat Bag for a season, we came to the conclusion that having the extra clothes bag separate from the ditch bag didn't make sense - if we got in trouble, we'd probably want everything together in one bag, along with our car keys and cell phone. That's when we purchased the larger West Marine Ditch Bag.

We moved all of the old Ditch Bag stuff into the new bag, along with our rain gear and boots. When we board the boat, we put our car keys, cell phone, and wallet in a ziplock plastic bag inside the Ditch Bag for safekeeping. This has us down to two bags in front - the Ditch Bag, and the boating gear bag.

A side note - you need to make sure you let your bags "breath" at the end of the day. Moist ocean air can get trapped inside, resulting in mildew. We typically unzip the bags and leave them open until the next time we go fishing.

Built-in tackle boxes
A lot of new boats come with tackle boxes built into the console or some other bulkhead. The really trick ones use boxes like the Plano 3700s or 3600s as the drawers, so you can switch tackle easily. We looked hard at where we might be able to install one of these boxes in Toy Boat 2, but could not find any place where there was enough rear clearance.

Gloveboxes & cubbies
For small items, you can purchase cubbies and glove boxes to install at strategic locations. However, we had the same problem with these as we had with the built-in tackle boxes. These might be able to be installed in the gunnels, if the glovebox or cubbie is shallow enough, but we haven't really come up with anything important that we would put in them. At least, nothing important enough to warrant cutting a hole in the gunnel!

Swingback seats
Many center consoles come with swingback seats that have storage underneath. We also looked at this option, but we needed the space for the livewell.