Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
I always love it when I can buy something to use for boating or fishing someplace other than from a tackle shop or marine supply store. Not that I have anything against such establishments, God knows I spend enough time and money in them, and they certainly keep my fishing business and me alive. It’s just that you can be sure that most products designed and marketed for use in the marine industry are going to be at a premium price. So I’m one happy-camper to find anything that’s not intended for marine use but fulfills a boating or fishing need.
This came to mind the other day as I was wandering through the “beach and pool” section of a department store looking for some pool-noodles, which are of course, the colorful 4½-foot long foam swim toys kids play with in the water. Talk about the perfect thing on a boat! Pool-noodles are light, buoyant, can be easily cut into any length, usually have a hole in the middle, and come in a variety of bright colors, and best of all, at 1-3 dollars each – they’re cheap! I can’t begin to consider how many uses I’ve found for this so called “kids toy,” but here’s a small sampling:
Boaters often need some kind of float to mark a location out on the water, particularly wreck fishermen who need to know where to drop their anchor so that they can set up and fish properly on a structure. Bright colored noodles make great marker buoys but they tend to tear if too much pressure is put on them. To fix the problem boaters can epoxy a piece of PVC inside the noodle and then run the buoy line through the PVC - the noodle won’t be cut by the line. With or without the PVC insert, noodles can also be used as boat fenders (bumpers) for small boats, floats for chum buckets, clam baskets, and live bait keepers.
A portion of the console grab-rail on one of my boats is covered with a length of noodle I use to hang the hooks, lures, and flies on that I change out during the day. Noodles can also be used as padding on railings or other parts of the boat including the inside of compartments where there might be tackle or equipment that could be damaged when the boat is bouncing over waves. Noodles are also handy to cover gaff points and knife blades when sheaths are not available and as a life-jacket of sorts for gaffs, nets, even fishing rods that might accidentally be dropped overboard.
More so than anything else, pool noodles make excellent fishing floats! By cutting them down to an appropriate length, noodles can be used for sharking, chunking, and other types of fishing that requires a relatively large float. How long the float needs to be should be determined by how heavy the bait is and how visible it needs to be from a distance. Anglers should first put a heavy rubber band around the float then pass their fishing line through the hole in the center of it. After positioning the float whatever distance it needs to be from the bait, the line is looped a couple times around the rubber band to keep the float from sliding. When a fish bites and the line comes tight it will pull free from the rubber band and the float will slide freely on the line and be ready to use again. If multiple lines are being fished they can be distinguished by using different colored floats.
(Note: I know that a lot of fishermen still use balloons as floats and for many years I did too. In fact, I'm going to be so bold as to say that I'm one of the pioneers of balloon fishing because when I started using them no one else that I'm aware of was. In those early years we spent a lot of time experimenting with different shapes, colors, and sizes of balloons as well as many different ways of attaching them to the line. It's now been 15-20 years since I've even had one on the boat. We quit using balloons for two reasons; First, many, if not "most" balloons used for floats eventually end up floating free on the ocean and it's been well documented and publicized that fish, birds, turtles, and marine mammals eat balloons and die! That "fact" in itself should be reason for anyone with half a brain not to use them as fishing floats. But if "doing the right thing" is not someone's gig then they should consider the other benefit of noodles that they are simply more effective (and cheaper) to use as fishing floats.)
As a pool-noodle connoisseur I’ve learned to avoid noodles in shapes that aren’t round or don’t have holes in the middle, as they aren’t as versatile. Noodles usually come in diameters of either 2 ½-inch or 3 ½-inch and the hole in the center might be 1-inch or 5/8-inch. The larger holes are best if the noodle is going to be slipped over a boat railing while the smaller hole is better for fishing floats. Dollar stores usually have the best prices on noodles, and I suggest keeping an extra one or two on the boat for needs that pop up unexpectedly, the more you use them the more uses you’ll discover. My only fear is that some day the manufacturers of pool-noodles will come to realize that their products are being used on boats and start labeling them "marine grade," jack up their price, and I'll have to go into a tackle shop to buy them!
