Hands Free at Last: One Saturday With Rod Holders on the Bank

There is a sound a fishing rod makes when it slides off the bank and lands in the dirt, and I have heard it more times than I care to count. It usually happens right after I turn my back. I am baiting a hook for Ben, or digging a snack out of the bag, or pulling a tangle out of somebody's line. Then I hear it.

For years my answer was forked sticks. You cut one off a bush, jam it in the mud, and hope. Sometimes it held. Sometimes the mud was soft and the whole thing tipped over with a rod in it. Other times we just laid the rods in the grass and told the kids to watch them, which is about like asking a nine year old to watch a cloud.

The trouble with three kids on a bank is arithmetic. Three rods, two hands, one worm bucket, and a bobber that needs watching. Somebody always needs something at the exact moment a rod starts moving.

I got tired of it. The first week of March I ordered the DZrudun ground rod holders, the 2-pack, along with the rest of the gear we needed after a cold Saturday at the pier in late February when the line kept bird nesting off those cheap reels and Ben cried and we went home after an hour. That afternoon I found loose hooks rolling around the back of the Tahoe and decided the whole setup was changing.

The holders sat in the box until a Saturday in late March, when we drove out to my aunt's farm pond instead of the reservoir. That was on purpose. I wanted to try the new things somewhere I could slow down and actually look at them, and that bank is soft and easy to work.

We got there around seven. I twisted both holders into the bank, set the rods, and sat down on the cooler for the first time in years without a rod balanced across my knees.

The stake is 12.95 inches of stainless steel, tapered like a drill, and it bites into soft bank ground in a way no stick I ever cut did.

That stake is the part that sold me. It is 12.95 inches of stainless steel, tapered like a drill bit, and it goes into soft ground with a twist and a push. My forked sticks were maybe six inches of green wood and they wobbled every time a boat wake came through. This does not wobble. I set two rods in it that first morning and went back to helping Callie with her bait.

The head adjusts 360 degrees horizontally and 130 degrees vertically, which sounds like a lot of numbers for a piece of bank gear until you use it. I point mine low and toward the water. Callie sets hers almost flat because she likes to watch the tip. My catfish rod sits a little steeper so it leans back off the bank a touch. The body is reinforced nylon, and the two holders came with a small storage pouch that lives in the back of the Tahoe now. Eight months in, nothing has cracked and nothing has rusted. It carries a one year warranty and I have not needed it.

On pond mornings Callie rigs the jigs and Ben runs a bobber and a worm. Having a holder means I can stand behind Ben and watch his line instead of holding mine. That sounds small. It is not small when you are the only adult on the bank.

What it will not do is go in a pier. The public piers around Ross Barnett are wood, and there is nowhere to drive a stake, so on pier days the DZrudun holders stay in the Tahoe and we fish off the rail like everybody else. I am not going to pretend otherwise. Two holders also means two rods, so when all three kids want a line out, somebody is still waiting a turn. Wyatt usually takes the third rod and fishes it on the grass beside me.

The stake is also work in hard ground. My aunt has a stretch near the dam where the clay is packed tight, and I have to lean into it and twist. Soft bank, no problem. Baked clay or a rocky patch, bring some patience. One habit I picked up: after I set a rod, I give the holder a little push to test it before I walk away. If the stake moves, I twist it deeper.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you fish the bank and you have ever watched a rod tip slide toward the water while both your hands were full, the DZrudun holders are worth your money. Get the 2-pack. If more than two people fish with you, get the 4-pack, because two is two and by July you will want more.

Set your angle before you bait up, not after. Twist the stake down until it is solid instead of halfway. And do not walk away from a rod with the drag locked down. A holder holds the rod. It does not land the fish for you.

We have used our DZrudun holders for about eight months now, at the pond and on the soft bank at the reservoir. It is not a complicated piece of gear and it does not need to be. It holds the rod so I can hold the worm bucket, and that is the whole job.