Rod Holder Angles Explained
Jared 00:08
Matt I know a lot of people feel like we can never have enough rod holders on the boats. I
know it's getting pretty wild and crazy out there with some of them. Can you give any advice to
people that are looking to add more rod holders? The question comes up what angle do I use and
why do I pick a zero versus a 15 versus a 30? What can you tell people about that?
Matt 00:27
Yeah, I think a lot of that just comes down to what style fishing you are trying to do and
where are you putting the rod holder in the boat. Right. I've seen a hundreds of infinite number of different
configurations, but it really comes down to what you're trying to accomplish. If I put a couple of
rod holder in the bow of our Everglades with the intention of kite fishing right so I put a rod holder in there I
went with a 15 degree rod holder because I want a little angle I don't want to vertical so that
they're shaken around. And it was enough so that when I put the trident on there, I can put my
kite rod and a couple of other rods in there running up the kite, I got everything that I need.
The other thing that I did is I put 30s on the side of the gunnel, facing straight off the side, right? The reason I did that is I'm doing a lot of bottom fishing with the rod holders’ right. If I wanted to put an electric reel in there, that electric real even on a bentbutt is going to be more horizontal to the water so that when it's when you're when you crankin up, you know a big like yellow eye or something. You're putting a lot of pressure on that rod; you don't want to be doubling that rod back on itself.
Andrew 01:31
The nice thing about having those all over the gunnel too is when you set up drifts and position the boat,
you really want to have more than one option, right? Because if you only have one option that
you can only set up one way right so having those in different places on the boat allows you to
utilize more space in certain drifts all around the boat.
Matt 01:49
Certainly yeah, absolutely I mean, we've got 15s on the side for our flat lines when we're
drifting. 30s point a little bit more. The 15s allows the rod to load up a little bit better when
Say like a King Fish or something starts running off and starts headshaking the rod still maintains
pressure.
Jared 02:06
I think the norm; you jump in here if I'm wrong. You'll see a lot of boats where they'll have
zero degrees back by the transom. Right in the middle they’ll have a couple of 30 degrees out by the
back corners of the transom for trolling and then 15 degrees down the side kind of angled out a
little bit if you wanted to add some more rods in there for trolling and a lot of cases
Matt 02:27
Yeah, I would say the typical configuration is zeros and 15s along the back of the transom. And
then 30s for like the first three rod holders up the gunnels right, you got a straight back one a
little bit. pitched out and then the next step closer to the console is pitched out a little bit more of
those you're probably going to run from your riggers if you're trolling and then you've got your
flat lines which are straight back and you're 15s and zeros that are along the transmit 15 you probably
troll with zero is probably just for transportation, right? And that's a pretty standard
configuration that we're seeing a lot of new boats coming out with.
Andrew 02:58
Yeah, one cool thing I saw it buddy of mine has a newer contender and they've got some
zero degree flush mount rod holders up towards the casting deck. And so he's actually using it
pretty cool part we built for him to kind of have like a little makeshift rocket launcher type of
deal.
Matt 03:14
That’s the contender bay boat right yeah the 25.
Jared 03:17
And so they're putting rod holders in different places and I think it's super convenient if
you're up there and you're trying to land a fish and you need to put the rod somewhere instead of
laying it on the deck. You can drop it in that nice zero degrees.
Andrew 03:29
That's the nice thing about a lot of center consoles now too is that you'll see 0 degrees sometimes
you run all the way up the bow. And the reason for that is sometimes what they'll do is they'll pitch
baits right out. And that pitch baits always ready and out every rod holder to store it in.
Matt 03:42
So Right yeah, the rod holder at that point is just for storage, right? It's just for
transportation. It's readily available when you need it, but you're not necessarily fishing out of
it.
Andrew 03:52
So that rods not laying on the deck and it's not in anybody's way if you're fighting a fish and
it's kind of bait ready to go on it so you can just walk up there, grab it out of the rod holder, right, you
know, as you need it.
Jared 04:00
Awesome so a lot of options.
Matt 04:03
A lot options, there's no real right answer right that's the biggest thing to take into it. Select
what works best for the way you're about to fish.