On Nomad, we do quite a bit of teaser fishing, pulling both bridge and cockpit teasers on every trip. After trolling a lot of miles, we’ve encountered a couple of problems that required some attention while using our cockpit teaser rods. While teasing a fish on the cockpit teaser rod, the rod sometimes tried to lift up or jump out of the gimbal pin in the bottom of the swiveling rod holder, especially if the mate is reeling hard on a hot fish, or trying to reel with one hand and work the rigger halyard with the other. When the rod pops up, it makes it difficult to work the rod or tease the fish, and it causes the mate to stop winding while the rod is re-secured into the gimbal. Any pause while trying to tease the fish could cost you the shot. To help hold down the teaser rod, we installed a Rupp rigger-halyard fairlead next to the rod holder, with a cam cleat mounted below just like a regular outrigger halyard system. We then use a swiveling snap shackle to attach the tie-down to the reel harness lug. This setup keeps the rod firmly in place and also allows us to release the snap shackle quickly, even when under load, in case we need to move the rod in a hurry.
