Lots of previous thread discussions on this over the years.
IMHO, the best option for boom mounted holders is the high end all stainless holders with the more oval boom clamps. I got mine from West Marine when they still had store fronts in Canada. There are cheaper and not as strong/good stainless boom mounted holders available on line. Other than price, the only downside is that they are heavy and you will notice the difference in weight when carrying the rigger. They have a tough, thin, smooth, slick plastic liner and flared bell so removing the rods fast on a strike is easy. My custom rigger mount bottom sections are so heavy duty and well designed that I think you would destroy the side of the boat before it would break and the added weight of the stainless holders on the booms will never be a problem. Our high end rods and reels only go in the stainless rod holders as we don't want to lose the really expensive gear. When I have taken the riggers into the Scotty factory for servicing, even the Scotty guys seem impressed with these stainless boom mounted rod holders, but they are not cheap. In our case the boom also required some very minor modification to mount the new holders and not interfere with the tube in tube sliding boom extension.
Besides rigger boom mounted stainless rod holders there are six other Scotty holder bases with the push button release locking mechanism (the best and most safe type) located along the sides and transome of the fishing deck area that will accept all of the various Scotty holders, not that you would ever use them all at the same time. They do, however, allow maximum flexibility in rigging your boat for stacking, running surface lines and Halibut fishing etc. There are also times when you may want or only have enough time to clear one side of the boat to net or release a fish. In that case the unused holder bases on the opposite side can have a Scotty holder slammed into them (if not already installed) and the rod/s from the side to be cleared moved to the other side of the boat out of the way, without bringing them up. You also increase the number of double headers doing this, but for a really big Chinook, if we have the time, and in most cases you do, we like to clear all rods and rigger balls out of the water. This system works well for us.
IMHO, the best option for boom mounted holders is the high end all stainless holders with the more oval boom clamps. I got mine from West Marine when they still had store fronts in Canada. There are cheaper and not as strong/good stainless boom mounted holders available on line. Other than price, the only downside is that they are heavy and you will notice the difference in weight when carrying the rigger. They have a tough, thin, smooth, slick plastic liner and flared bell so removing the rods fast on a strike is easy. My custom rigger mount bottom sections are so heavy duty and well designed that I think you would destroy the side of the boat before it would break and the added weight of the stainless holders on the booms will never be a problem. Our high end rods and reels only go in the stainless rod holders as we don't want to lose the really expensive gear. When I have taken the riggers into the Scotty factory for servicing, even the Scotty guys seem impressed with these stainless boom mounted rod holders, but they are not cheap. In our case the boom also required some very minor modification to mount the new holders and not interfere with the tube in tube sliding boom extension.
Besides rigger boom mounted stainless rod holders there are six other Scotty holder bases with the push button release locking mechanism (the best and most safe type) located along the sides and transome of the fishing deck area that will accept all of the various Scotty holders, not that you would ever use them all at the same time. They do, however, allow maximum flexibility in rigging your boat for stacking, running surface lines and Halibut fishing etc. There are also times when you may want or only have enough time to clear one side of the boat to net or release a fish. In that case the unused holder bases on the opposite side can have a Scotty holder slammed into them (if not already installed) and the rod/s from the side to be cleared moved to the other side of the boat out of the way, without bringing them up. You also increase the number of double headers doing this, but for a really big Chinook, if we have the time, and in most cases you do, we like to clear all rods and rigger balls out of the water. This system works well for us.
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