Ultimate Kayak Fishing: Pvc - A True Friend - Ultimate Kayak Fishing

PVC and CPVC are two of my "best friends" when it comes to making projects that need to be quick and easy or used in the salt.

I designed a rod rack for my Hobie that fit my needs.

I fly fish so I didn't want a lot of rods sticking up in the air to foul my back casts. I also didn't want something permanently mounted on my yak that might interfere with storage or transportation. I also wanted to be able to bring along a spinning rod and a rod for trolling. Since I also night fish I wanted a place to mount a navigational light.

This is what I came up with;


The spinning rod holder and fly rod holder will twist out of the Ts they are in and can be repositioned to where the bait casting rod holder is or to the other side. The cross bar can be separated from the two up rights that slide down into the molded in rod holders of the Hobie. While assembled this unit cannot slide out of the molded in rod holders. Once I detach the cross bar then everything can be removed from the boat.

The threaded T on the cross bar accepts a "mast" with a battery powered light that is attached to it. During the day I can thread a "mast" into that is set up with a camera mount on it, as seen in this picture.


The ends of the rod holders were flared by sticking them into a pot of hot cooking oil, once they became "soft" they were then forced down on a wine bottle to flare them and then immersed into ice water. Water will not get hot enough to soften the PVC.

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Another easy PVC project was my "sand cart". I was in Connecticut visiting friends and just happened to be driving by a house when the owner was attaching a "FREE" sign to an old cart that got towed behind a lawn tractor. He saw junk - I saw a "sand cart".

I turned around and went back and told him I would take the cart because I wanted the wheels. He assured me I could have the wheels but I also had to take the rest of the cart with them . I was driving my friends sports car so I told him I would be back shortly with my pick up. Picked up the cart, pulled off the wheels and axle and took the rest to a junk yard. These are tube tires not solid rubber and I think they will work great going across the beaches at the Cape.




Now that I am in Florida and fishing canals with mangroves growing into the water I am going to build another rod holder for the Hobie. This one is basically going to be the same design except the Ts on the cross bar are going to be turned up more. This is to keep the rod tips out of the brush when turning in close to the mangroves.

This post has been edited by mac: 19 December 2009 - 09:38 PM

In the above post I reference the "mast" with my camera mount. This is also another cheap and quick project.

The components are a table top tripod, a section of 3/4" PVC pipe and a 3/4" PVC pipe cap



When you turn the tripod over there is a screw in the center that is removed to dismantle the tripod.



This is what it looks like in pieces.



Drill a hole through the PVC cap just large enough to pass the screw from the tripod through.



Thread the screw through and replace the small rubber washer onto the screw.



Thread the screw back into the base of the camera mount (You may want to place a drip of Loc Tite on the threads)



Glue the PVC cap onto the section of the pipe.



This mast was made for my rod holder set up. I also made a second base that slips into the hole for the sailing mast for the Hobie. Before you do the final gluing I suggest trying different lengths for the section of the PVC.

So far I have not glued the cap onto the PVC pipe. It is a very tight "force fit" and I am still deciding on the final height of the mast. I shot one video when I was landing a small red fish and the height seems to be okay but I want to do a few more before the final gluing.

Hopefully, even if you don't have a Hobie, this will give you some ideas for setting up a camera mount. We all enjoy seeing pictures!

This post has been edited by mac: 22 December 2009 - 02:45 PM