Rods: one-piece or two?

[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