I read this morning complaints concerning rod storage in older boats built in a time when the long rods were 6.5ft.

Dedicating this thread to Rod Storage may help other board members to think out of the box.

So this boat is my Crappie beater, 15ft VL100 Blazer 1996, only 5.5ft rods fit in the rod locker. After my addition of 4 rod tubes inside the locker I can put 4 rods up to 7ft pointing aft and 4 rods pointing forward up to 5.5ft. I didn't take a picture of the inside tubes, there are 4 silicone together, flat, I used a tie wrap to hold together until silicone was fully cured. Then slid the stack of rod tubes inbetween the outer hull skin and inner interior skin. Works great. A pain to access when the long poles are on top of the locker lid but my trout rods are in the boat.

Now the pictures show 3-11ft rods, 2-9ft rods, plus 6ft spinning rods. All I did was un-screw the port seat, move it as far starboard as it would go, screw it back down. This left the space where the tubes were installed thru the glass for the rods tips to go. 2 rods will easily fit in each tube, the Electrical conduit was added later so I could carry 2-12ft rods inside a 15ft boat. The picture inside the storage shows how the tubes are just tie wrapped to the PVC for security. Finally the last shows the PVC sticking out the back of the cap. Don't laugh, many a crappie angler has spend $40K or more to be able to carry a 12ft rod. Me, I didn't spend quite so much and when my boat is bouncing off cypress trees in the river I don't think twice. BTW I have painted the PVC several times due to bouncing off stuff without breaking (YET!). Total rod capacity - 2-12 footers, 4-11 footers, 4-7 footers, and 4- 5.5 footers, not bad for a 15ft boat. I'm restoring & custom designing another VL100 dedicated to single pole fishing crappie, it is one of the other threads on this board.

P.S. since I fish by myself 98% of the time as you can see I broke a piece of aluminum, carpeted it, screwed it down using the same holes where the passenger seat went, and now carry my fish cooler so it is not in my way.
The net is homemade too. If my net blows out of the boat I have a yellow handle sticking straight up making it very easy to spot.

Creative Rod Storage 1.jpgCreative Rod Storage 2.jpgCreative Rod Storage 3.jpgCreative Rod Storage 4.jpgCreative Rod Storage 5.jpg