Rods: one-piece or two?

[StocktonDon]

Rods: one-piece or two?

I have the normal fisherman's warehouse of tackle throughout my house to choose from in outfitting my kayak and, of course, it would be just awful to have to buy some new toys. My expeditions are almost always multi-species, multi-activity (fishing, diving, touring, camping).

So I am trying to figure out how to carry all the stuff in my first kayak, a Hobie Adventure. I am looking at dry bags to stow gear in the hull that is not being actively used. I want to keep things dry and safe when the boat is being used as a dive platform, and in the event I find myself checking out the boats tertiary stability (aka clinging to the overturned hull).

So, it looks to me that one-piece fishing rods are out of the question. In fact, getting even two-piece rods in and out of the hull while on the water may be a challenge. Same challenge for long freedive fins and spearguns. On river and lake tours you can almost always pull over to shore to wrestle with gear if need be, but the ocean is a different deal. How do you guys handle these challenges?

Crew (aka darn cat): notes his solution is to stay home but the Captain is always pressing his luck. Nonsense, luck has little to do with it! It's opportunity meeting preparation, and this post is all about preparation. (Crew: so that's luck you feel when opportunity meets Preparation H?) Captain reminds Crew that common decency and federal HIPPA laws prohibit disclosure of medical information. Crew notes he never claimed to be common, and violates naval tradition while demonstrating why he doesn't need said preparation. Captain notes further demerits. Message ends.

[PerryC]

SD,
We'll often have something like a fishing crate that can hold our rods ready for use behind us, or keep them in some other type of mount like flush mounts etc. If you go this route, it's a good idea to use rod leashes on the rods in case you do end up going over, you keep your rods with you instead of the bottom of the ocean.

Having nice big hatches and a hull that has a good amount of glide to it is one of the things you really need to look at before getting a kayak in my opinion. The tarpon, prowler and eXtremes are pretty good for this, I know when I looked at the Hobie, it looked like one of the best kayaks I've seen and fast even in the showroom. But, I also noticed the hatches were not that big, but the tankwell was and would take a crate pretty easily. If you don't want to use a fishing crate or flush mounts or ram tubes to hold your rods, when I had my Swing I used to tie the rods to padeyes on the upper sides of the deck during launching/landing. I tied them off in a few places and they were pretty flat along the deck in case of a mishap. Then I would assemble them on the water and store them in the flushmounts. It took just a few minutes and worked out pretty good. Hope this helps,
Perry