Tips and Hints

Good question, and probably the most common one! The sole purpose of the eight-inch Velcro fastener material connecting piece is to limit the angle of the rod, both for active trolling, and for second-rod storage. Some folks keep thinking it’s to secure the rod in the holder, but that’s not what it was designed for.

Easily the most common question. Once you insert the rod properly, the only way it will come out, is if you take it out. If you’re nervous about losing your rod, secure it with a rod tether, an item which many fly shops carry. By all means experiment with your own maximum angle for trolling. In the beta testing period, we’ve had rods angled almost parallel to the water, and still stay in the holder after a strike. When we tell you we first tried this with our prized Sage rods, you can bet we were nervous puppies (no rod tethers!).

One user (an author and fly casting instructor) reported that the holder worked beautifully for trolling for steelhead from his pontoon boat. Steelhead are extremely aggressive strikers, and are probably the largest game fish the holder can be used for, so we’d say the jury is in on this question….

It sure can! If you’re going to use the holder around your waist when you fish from the banks of a stream or river, it’s best to remove the eight-inch hook section fastener (Velcro) strip entirely from the unit. The sole purpose of this strip is to limit the tube travel for trolling or storage purposes, so it’ll only get in the way! After you clip the holder around your waist, position the tube section vertically, and wherever convenient. Some like it directly to the side, others slightly around the back or slightly in front, when not in use. When needed, simply slide the holder to an accessible position, cant the tube forward a little… and you’re ready for use! It’s a wonderful alternative to putting your rod on the rocks or sand, or trying to stuff it under your arm or into your waders as you change flies or tippets.

This is definitely personal preference, but most users report a preference for a stiff action. Curiously, all of our beta testers liked it looser. It needs to be tight enough to hold the rod upright, for when you get into and out of the tube. It needs to be just loose enough that if you are using the holder for trolling, you can just pull holder and rod up a little to set the hook when you get a strike. If you plan to use the holder for second rod storage, you may prefer a stiffer tensioning, so that your rod stays pretty much where you angle it.

If you have reason to separate the saddle and the tube, you’ll note we put a Mylar washer in between the two. We introduced this modification in our third season. We also put a touch of white grease lubricant on both sides of the washer. There’s no harm in missing this step, but the arrangement gives a significantly smoother action. When undoing or tensioning the nut and bolt, we suggest the use of a closed-end spanner on the nut and a ratchet drive from a socket set for the bolt. It needs to be tight. A screwdriver just won’t apply enough tension.

We can tell you that finding the right nut-and-bolt combination was a real challenge, and the only combination we’ve found to date is the current Nylock nut arrangement. Special gripping nuts, tension washers, star washers, we’ve tried them all. Nylock nuts are absolutely the best in this application, and if you have reason to take things apart and reassemble, you should dry-lubricate the bolt prior to fitting the nut. We certainly snapped our share of bolts before we learned of this little trick!

This is easy, now that we figured our way around a production bug. Spray a little lubricant or put a dash of water alongside the nut cover, and insert a flat screwdriver under one side of the nut cover. Lever gently upward, and it should pop off easily, allowing access to the nut. Putting it back on is also easy… position it sideways with the recess hole over the nut, and snap the cover back down.

Not at all, with a small caveat. With rods that have no fighting butt, the end of the rod doesn’t even make it down to the nut cover. Fighting butts may not fit, because of width. Some are so wide that, sorry, the Float‘n Tote won’t work with it. Others can fit into the rod tube, but foul the nut cover. In these cases, you can try reversing the nut and bolt position, putting the bolt head on the inside of the tube, and leave the nut cover off. This will give you lots of extra room. Although the nut intrudes a little into the inside of the saddle section with this arrangement, it’s covered by the strap and will cause no problems. Or, consider doing what some customers have done, and have the butt reduced on a lathe to fit….

Some folks have taken to mounting the unit on the inside of their tubes where they have enough space to do so, and some have tried angling the rod outward in outrigger style. One tuber (it's amazing what some folks will try!) drilled a third hole on the rear of the rod tube between the existing bolt holes, added a couple of washers, and bolted it all together with the new hole. Using the unit mounted from the inside, with the rod outward in outrigger fashion, the new arrangement had the reel vertically mounted. This one wasn’t to Hook Set’s preferences, but, different strokes for different folks!

Can the holder be set up for either right or left hand use?

Yes it can, and this was one of the design parameters. We’re told that about 10% of folks are left handed, so now we produce and label roughly one out of every dozen in left hand setup. If the holder you’ve purchased is the wrong setup for your preference, it’s straightforward to change. Just unbolt the tube from the saddle, switch the tube to the other face, and bolt it all back together. The design makes it fully ambidextrous, both for the holder itself, and for the Anchor Cleat 2 that comes with it. The AC2 is even simpler to change…. simply unthread the strap, turn the cleat 180 degrees, then re-thread the strap.

How do you get it tight around the float tube?

There’s a tendency for new users just to click the buckle sections together onto the tube, and to try and tighten by pulling on the excess strap. This method doesn't work well, and in fact we had one fly shop tell us they wouldn't carry the product because of this "fault". Here's the proper way of doing it. Prior to fitting, shorten the strap to just a little less than the diameter of your tube. Done correctly, this will leave the buckle halves just a little short of fitting together. You can then press-fit the sections together (the further apart they are when you start, the tighter the final tension will be). By doing the connection in this way, you can easily adjust your strap tension anything from snug to immoveable. Some users like it just tight enough that the unit can slide a little on the tube while out on the water, to fine-tune the final position.

Not many. We’ve tried different lubrications, no lubrication and washers between the saddle and the tube – and will continue to try different combinations. As of February 2003, we’ve settled on a very thin Mylar washer, along with a dash of white grease, in between the tube and the saddle. Field testing over the last year indicates little or no wear at all, and the action is smoother. However, the Test Crew has found that even the earliest assemblies made without the Mylar washer are still holding their tension ok, but you’d be wise to check the tension each time before you leave on a fishing jaunt.

But we have changed the finishing and the shape of the entrance to the tube a little bit. Initially we just cleaned up the edging surfaces, but subsequent experimenting led to better methods for dealing with edges. The Delrin plastic is very good to work with, and we found we could – and now do – trim the edges a little, and heavily dome them using a combination of decreasingly coarse wet-and-dry sanding paper. Final step is a felt polishing wheel, and the result is smoother and slightly more open entrance for the rod butt. This adds a lot of extra finishing time for each unit, but it makes such a nice difference that we have now incorporated the process into all new units.

If you are an existing user, and happen to have one of the original holders that hasn't been as nicely finished as the later production units, well then, just complete your fishing season and then send it back to us for re-furbishing. We'll be happy to do this for you, at no charge!

The art of finishing

If you run a careful eye over the holder, you may notice some minor scratches just inside the top of the rod tube. If you don’t see any, your holder is one of the few that don’t! This design requires extensive hand finishing, and almost inevitably some minor scratches are picked up from the sanding at some point. Please consider such markings a personal signature….