Types of Rod Holders for Kayak Fishing

Different Styles of Rod Holders Explained

Hi! Steve here at ACK. I wanted to talk to you for a minute about the different styles of rod holders for kayak fishing. There's probably 20 to 30 to 40 different versions out there and sometimes making that decision can be difficult.

I want to point out a couple of differences on some of the rod holders we carry and what makes them different. These two rod holders over here- one from Ram and one from Scotty. There are two broad holders. The butt of your rod fits inside the tube, there's no locking mechanism, and no strapping. It holds them in place, which can be positive or negative. It means you can get your rods in and out of the rod holder quickly and easily. But you potentially run the risk of knocking the rod out of the holder and into the lake or having a fish pull it out of there for you.

This version here happens to be from Scotty. It's what they call their bait caster and spinning rod holder. They also have a fly rod version which looks very similar. Both of them have a locking mechanism which is essentially a rubber strap and that rubber strap fits over your rod which traps your real and your rod inside the holder. You can see it's pretty easy to operate it. It's strong and shouldn't come out of there but it's not entirely a positive locking mechanism. So you are relying on the rubber strap. In most cases, that's more than enough.

But if you needed to go a little heavier duty, Scotty offers what they call the power lock. The power lock has this collar that just twists and it's a positive locking collar. It can't come undone without quite a bit of effort. You can see that this rod holder is a lot larger than their bait caster or spinning version. So it's probably suited more for the guys that are going out beyond the breakers or further out and going after the bigger fish while carrying the bigger tackle. It might be a little bit of overkill for your ultralight gear.

Railblaza uses a smaller version which is very similar to the bait caster. But they do incorporate this positive locking sleeve like the power lock does. So you're kind of getting the small compact size of the bait caster and the positive locking feature of the power lock in the Railblaza version.

All of these function really well. We've had great feedback from our customers, they're just choices out there. If you have any questions or still can't figure out what's right for you, shoot us an email. We'll be glad to answer your questions. Hope to see out on the water. Thanks a lot!