As most of you know my family and I were blessed to be the winner's in the Crappie.com contest which was held a little bit ago.
My kids, wife and I were all very excited about this news. We all wanted to say thank you to Crappie.com for holding the contest, Driftmaster for offering the prizes, and to all the crappie.com members for participating and reading all the stories. I think it really shows that as a general rule of thumb those who crappie fish have big hearts.
So after learning that we had won the contest from Slab, I could barely contain myself jumping up and down and with much happiness in my heart, I was very very excited. Anthony didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
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Miranda on the other hand informed me that no matter what kind of rod holder i attached on the boat she would always catch bigger fish than me. :)
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Here are some closeups of the Holder's once I assembled them and got them ready for mounting on the boat.
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It's all stainless except for the mounting plate which is thick aluminum, extraordinary craftsmanship... everything fit like a glove.
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closeup of the base area
To start I decided to mount 4 of the rod holders on the front of my boat, I plan on mounting 2 more in the back in the near future, and then deciding if i need to mount 2 more up front. I did a couple dry runs while sitting on the seat and decided the best place to mount these on my relatively small boat would be on the rails.
Mounting was straightforward and easy, the set comes with all the hardware you need.
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Here is a pic of the configuration of the four mounted in the front of the boat (it worked out perfectly so my trolling motor does not even touch the front left one when stowing and deploying it.
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And a pic of how they fold flat very easily.
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And a couple pictures with a rod in there to demonstrate how the look in action.
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You know it's pretty easy to be hyped up about something when you win it in a contest for free. But after installing and using these things a time or two I can say with certainty that whether i would have won these, or bought them myself I would be darned proud of them. These things are the Genuine Real Deal top of the line! They are made out of high quality materiel, The are very sturdy, and adjustable in every possible axis. Want your rod tip a little higher... no problem. Want it a right at the water... easy as pie. Want to turn em in a different angle... just a wingnut away. Want to stow them flat for trailering (or if you want your front deck clear to throw a castnet etc... just twist the rod holder, lay it flat and twist it back... amazingly easy.
Anthony and I made a quick trip out to Toledo Bend and we spider rigged around the Pendleton Bridge area and we did pretty well, ended up keeping 8 Real nice sized crappie after just over 2 hours (considering it was my first trip to that area of TB i am pretty happy with that) Anthony stood watch over the two poles on the Right Side and I watched the ones on the left. He caught all the fish but two on the black and chart Charlie Brewer jigs we had out.
Unfortunately somehow or another i either managed to destroy the SD card the pictures were on... or my camera did not save them properly in the first place.. (i'm not sure which it was)
But we will get loads of pictures on our next trip and I will update and follow up on all this.
Again Huge thanks to Crappie.com & Driftmaster!!!!
(now i just need to figure out where the heck i can fit one of those HUGE driftmaster stickers on my boat... I am thinking front of the Livewell? or the Backside of the front Casting Deck?)
And here's one more picture of anthony & miranda trying to figure out what kind of strange looking crappie daddy done brought home.
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