hey guys welcome back to window fishing today i'm going to show you how to make a diy rod holder for
your float tube now here's the thing this design is not just about holding one or two rods i made a
design that's going to fit your pliers your fish grip your phone and even a diy gopro boom mount
i had the cut list i have all the links of what you need in order to make this thing it doesn't
get much easier than this video right here let's hop in all right we're gonna mod this guy right
here this is the number one selling float tube in the united states it is the fish cat 4. now i have
the deluxe version and the biggest difference between the fish cat 4 and the fish cat deluxe
is really simple it's just these seat pads um the fish cat comes with foam and the fishcat deluxe
actually as you can see here they're inflatable so they make it a whole lot easier to deflate
pack down for transportation all right so this is a nice float tube but the thing about float
tube fishing is a minimalist way of fishing so not a lot to these guys i mean we got a little
bit of storage here and some d-rings as you see right here not a lot to work with when it comes to
doing diy modifications so i've been thinking up a design for a couple weeks now and i needed to have
a place for my pliers my fish grips a place for my drinks if i wanted to a place for my phone two rod
hoarders and some diy leashes to boot and i did it here we go alright so don't get overwhelmed there
is a variety of parts i am going to provide you with a parts list and a cut list to make it easy
the first thing you need is a six foot piece of one and a half inch pvc and i chose pvc over abs
for a couple of reasons first pvc is a lot more flexible and i like working with it and i have
in a lot of other my diy modification videos and while the abs is a little bit stronger and has
a higher impact and shock rating i also found out that the abs is more expensive and a lot
more difficult to find but if you really want that black pipe look then i recommend the abs
because painting the pvc is a pain and to be honest with you it doesn't hold paint very
well just chip unless you put down primer and at that point all the money you saved on pvc over abs
is lost so if you want the black look for the rod holder choose abs gonna be a little more expensive
but if it doesn't matter to you pvc is the way to go which is what i'm using during this build
let's get the cutting first break out that six foot piece of one and a half inch pvc
the reality is you're probably going to have to buy a 10 foot piece because that's what they come
with your local hardware store unless you have a really cool hardware store like i do they'll
actually let you cut it in the store which is save you a lot of time a lot of mess at home
so go ahead and grab that and these are the cuts that you're going to need to make all right you
can make these cuts on a variety of different things you can use a miter saw or a chop saw
just go slow so at the end it doesn't chip it out or you can use a hacksaw if you don't have a power
tool and so you're going to need two 11 and a half inch pieces a 10 inch a nine and a half inch
eight inch six inch and three two inch sections of pvc so go ahead and make those cuts
the next cut you're gonna need to make is you're gonna need a three inch piece of pvc and it'd
be really nice if you can cut this down in the store because we buy a ten foot section of this
it's going to be pretty expensive you are going to need to cut this to five
inches go ahead and make that cut and the last piece of pipe you're going to need to cut is a 25
inch piece of three quarter inch pvc so here's the thing if you have to buy a 10 foot section of this
not a big deal because this is not that expensive and as a reminder
i'm going to put the cut list in the description below no worries you're also going to need some
couplers and crosses and reducers and bushings so let me walk you through what you're going
to need and here's the thing i have a link below but you can also grab these in the
plumbing section of your hardware store and let me walk you through the rest of your parts list
all right you're going to need two of these guys this is a one and a half inch cross
coming in four ways uh you're going to need a one and a half inch 45 degree i need two of those
you're also going to need a three and a half inch to one and a half inch reducer two of those you're
gonna need a one and a half inch 90 degree need two of those you need a three quarter inch cap
you're going to need a one and a half inch to three quarter inch bushing you're going to need a
one quarter inch thumb screw a washer for that thumb screw some pvc cement velcro straps
and a phone holder cup holder with a goose neck adjustable arm and last but not least
this guy uh it's kind of a gopro tripod mount adapter that is adjustable and that's a quarter
inch right there for most of this stuff you're just going to get the glue out start sticking
it together except for the gopro boom and the rod holder for the rod holders you're gonna have to do
a little more diy work to get that flare on the end that you that you see there and also how to
get this cut so i created two other videos on how to do that that'll walk you through and i
made that out of one and a half inch pvc as well so it's perfect for this mod and the end result
is this the reason for the two videos is because one's designed for a spin cast
reel and the other is for a baitcaster and if you have a baitcaster you know there's a little knob
on the back of the rod that won't fit nicely into the spin cast design so that's why there's two
it's fairly easy to do all you need to do is take a heat gun heat up the inside and
outside of your pvc then stick this over a wine bottle until it flares out then you make your
last cuts down and over if you want to see the video you can but that's essentially how you
do it and most you'll be able to figure it out the next thing you're going to do is take your
three inch pvc cut to a length of five inches and measure down one half inch make a mark
do the same thing on the opposite side then take a 3 16 inch drill bit and drill those
holes this is where you're going to attach your diy leashes for your pliers and your fish grips
good to go there now go and grab your one quarter inch drill bit
and drill a hole directly in the top of your cap next what you're gonna do is take your
thumb screw i like to grab on to it with the pliers and then twist it on up through
now take your adjustable gopro mount
it's a quarter inch right there that's why we got the quarter inch thumb screw screw that in
make sure it's nice and tight and boom this is what goes on top of your gopro mount let me show
you how to put this all together and attach it to your boat i see way too many videos where people
are just attaching them to their boat with the d-ring that's way too much slack for me i want
a much tighter fit so stick around to the end and i'll show you how to make it perfect so what
i recommend is just putting these together first without gluing it because once you glue it as you
know there's no room for adjustment and you're likely going to want to make those adjustments
maybe you don't want the gopro boom that high maybe you want the angle off maybe you don't want
it on the left side of the boat because you're left-handed you want it on the right side of the
boat so it's not in your way when you're casting so it's good just kind of put it together put it
on your boat see how it fits all right let me show you how this all goes together you're gonna take
your reducer put it into your two-inch cut put that into your 90-degree elbow this is your six
inch cut over to your cross when you go down you're going to put your 2 inch cut into your 45
this is going to be your 8 inch cut up to your reducer up to your 3 inch pipe which is
cut at five inches this is going to be your nine and a half inch cut over to your cross
this is going to be your 11 and a half inch flared rod holder going down one inch to your 45
and then back here this is going to be your 10 inch cut it's going to go to your 90 degree elbow
up to your bushing and then over your bushing you're going to put in your 25 inch cut
up to the cap with the adjustable gopro off the back so let's go and put this
bad boy together but don't glue it yet don't glue it yet
all right this is how it looks all put together so let's go ahead and put this on
the float tube and i'll show you why the angles are the way they are especially these two 45s
all right now you're starting to see the method to the madness this is how it's going to sit
on your float tube but it's going to be a little higher up what we're going to do is wrap a velcro
piece around this float tube section and around the outside which is going really nice and tight
to the float tube and also we're going to run another velcro section behind the seat around
the tube back under which is going to hold this side nice and tight and when you do that these
little 45s down here are going to sit nicely and keep this thing from rocking or falling
out when you have your fish grips and pliers and rod and gopro on the back so let me go
ahead and velcro this to kind of show you what i'm talking about then we'll make some marks
then we'll glue it all right the front one's fairly easy just take your velcro strap
all right for the back side you're just gonna run three of these velcro strips together and
run them around your boat and tighten it up there it is nice and velcroed on the on the
front like some velcro on the back and as you can tell if i pull on this the 45s down here keep it
from pulling out so that was part of the design so now what i highly recommend is pulling this
back until the 45s are touching the boat and then adjust everything just like you want it so you can
see here i don't necessarily want that going out so you can start adjusting all your pieces
a few things to note before you start gluing this thing make sure the holes that you drilled ones
on the inside one's on the outside from where you will be sitting and also it's also nice to kind of
have this adjustable knob so you can kind of turn around and grab it so i kind of want that there
and then just to be super safe versus sorry just go around and marking kind of how it's sitting
because how you have right now it's perfect and so you can start marking all the pipe and how
it's perfectly how it's sitting now so when you take it off and glue it you can put it right back
into that place at the angle in which it's sitting so go around and do that to everything
now you have it all marked you can take it off the velcro and take it back to the workbench because
we still got a few more mods to do all right break out the pvc cement let's start gluing this thing
as you can see i glued everything except for this middle piece and the reason i'm pausing right now
is because as of right now if you were entering your float tube
off a dock and you accidentally dropped this in the water this would go all the
way to the bottom so if you wanted to make this so it floated you can go ahead and grab
some of this insulated foam shove it in there spray it in and then glue the last sections and
this would make this bad boy float and you would never lose it so let's go into that
now before that foam starts to expand over around where you need to glue go ahead and
glue it real quickly now don't worry if that foam comes out the bottom here at your 45s
it's easy just to cut off now they're all glued up let's make some diy leashes for your plier
and fish grip holder right here it's pretty easy to make diy kayak leashes for just about anything
you're going to need a few items and what i did is i went down to the local thrift store and you can
get old phone chargers for 25 cents i mean there's a ton of these make sure they're the pigtails
right here i mean ancient look at those things i don't even remember what these were used for
grab a few of these depending on how many leashes for this particular design you're gonna need two
you're also gonna need some eight inch cable ties and some heat shrink tubes if you don't have these
things there's a link in the description below the tools you're gonna need to make these is two pair
of pliers a pair of scissors a carpenter's knife and a heat gun if you don't have a heat gun man i
use this in a ton of my diy videos let me show you how to make these take each one of your chargers
snip it off at the furthest end you possibly can right there and right there do it for all of them
all right next we're going to take a 5 16 shrink tube and cut a quarter off of it
do that twice now you're going to take the 5 16 shrink tube put it
over one of your ends and what i like to do is attach it directly to the tool these are
awesome booms aluminum pliers if you don't have a pair of fishing pliers and i'm not talking about
a pair of like pliers you have in your toolbox an actual pair of fishing pliers won't rust these are
awesome but here i'm going to flip this around and then you're going to attach this with a zip tie
tighten that nice and tug it with your hands now go ahead and grab your two pair of pliers grab an
end at the other end like that and pull just get a couple more clicks out of that make sure it's
super tight the idea here that it's so tight that this end starts to flare back out a little bit
when you got that you know you're good to go go ahead and put that shrink tube over the end now
what you want to do is take the carpenter's knife and cut this as close as you possibly can to make
that flush so i'm going to go and do that on the edge of a table that's what you're looking for
right there when you're good there go ahead and apply heat with your heat gun
you also notice if you have a really old phone charger if you run the heat gun over
it makes it look nice and shiny so i'm gonna go and do that make it look new
look at that just like the day it came out in 1980 next you're gonna do the exact same thing
except you're going to attach this end right here and run the heat now this is the inside so i want
the pliers on the inside i want the fish grips on the outside you know it's the inside because
the 45 degree angle points that way so let's go ahead and attach that this little tip here don't
get too close to this rubber or it will actually start to separate because it's too hot so stay
at a good distance but enough distance to make sure the shrink tube actually starts shrinking
i actually made another one of these attached to my fish grip so you can see here
but this time i put a carabiner on it because this tool goes back and forth between my fishing
kayak and my float tube and you can do that to this as well it's all personal preference
so if you move your tools around or if you have doubles you'll you can just directly connect it
if you don't have doubles and you move back and forth carabiner might be the way to go so you
can go ahead and attach that to the other side and keep in mind if you use a carabiner you're
probably going to drill a little larger hole for this to fit in there because the drill bit
size i used was made just to stick the wire and the carabiner is a little larger so if you need
to do that now go ahead and now that i drilled that hole though larger i can attach my carabiner
now that the glue is dried on this bad boy let's go ahead and attach it back
to the float tube and we got a couple more things we got to do all right let's velcro this back on
okay now you're gonna go grab your gooseneck adjustable phone holder i like this guy uh it's
a rax fly see the brand there and as you can see when i start twisting this it starts to expand
and we're going to put this into that reducer that we just built also because our phones are
expensive nowadays i want something actually going to hold it really well as you can see
here and you probably hear it when i click when i start to push it together it starts to click
now cool thing about that is it won't come back out unless i hit this button then it slowly
decompresses so you know that you know that you know when your phone gets trapped around this
it's going to be tight it's not going to come out all right now let's put this into the reducer
that is not coming out
oh that's awesome check that out sitting here in your float tube get your phone right there
perfectly angled out of your way oh yeah
sweet all right let's go ahead and put a rod in here see what that looks like
pick any one of these this one's actually made for a spin cast look at that it's going to keep this
out away from your float tube just how you wanted it a word of caution if you put that foam in there
i wouldn't go shoving your rods in there to see if they fit because they're going to get super
sticky so wait for that expanding foam to dry all right now you probably noticed you have one
of these left and one more strap if you bought the link that i put in the description below
which is perfect because what you're going to do is you can actually buy rod holders off of
the website outcast fishing uh but it's like it's like 25 here you can see it on amazon
25 30 and this cost you around a buck 50. so i'll show you how this attaches to your float tube
in case you need another rod holder all right i'm going to do is run your velcro through the tube
make sure the furry side is showing wrap it around your foot tube here
and go ahead and tighten that really good and there you have it
stick that bad boy right in there and you have yourself a second rod holder for your float tube
really simple last step just take your gopro adapter you probably have a ton of these things
uh this is a gopro black seven is what i use and it's what i shoot all my videos on so if you're
interested that's in the link below i'm just going to attach this and there you go and the reason
you want to adjust the bowl is so you can get what kind of whatever angle you want that looks
good to me you might be wondering why i like the fish grips on the outside but here's the thing i
don't carry a net with me so a lot of times when i catch a big fish take that vast lip
i'll go ahead and clip it into the fish grip and then i'll throw it back on the water and
let it swim around until i can get my camera ready so it's not sitting there or flapping in
my lap so that's why i have the hole for the fish grips on the outside and the pliers on the inside
as promised here's the videos for the rod holders for the baitcaster and here's the one for the
spin cast reel hey if this video brought you value please hit that sub and bell notification
that like button and i will keep them coming all right guys see you in the water bye