my new cane pole (5) live well/ice chest

One challenge to the cane pole rig was to have a small boat with an open area in the middle for my golden retriever, Harlie. I wanted a small cooler big enough for bream and crappie but also wanted a cooler for drinks and food. The rear boat pedestal was a simple non aerated live well with a drain plug. I really didn't want to get up and place fish in the designed live well. The main reason was to have a stick steer where I get in, sit down, and not having to get up and move around in a smaller rig.

Pilfering around the shop buildings resulted in an old cooler with some exterior splits. This cooler's lid had a small door and a ruler measurement imprinted in it. Perfect for some red neck engineering. Epoxy was mixed up and filled in the splits. The splits were then taped with duck tape and stapled. A two sided aluminum vehicle windshield reflector was cut down to fit the bottom. The reasoning was to have the aluminum to reflect heat back towards the bottom and the other aluminum side to reflect coolness back into the cooler. The cut out was epoxied to the bottom of the cooler. Since the blue cooler was messing with my ocd and I had some left over grey primer/paint from the welded repair, the cooler received a rattle can paint job.

The cooler fit snuggly behind the front steering pedestal and the added bottom layer actually provided a skid resistant area. Now the next challenge was how to store food and drink. I really didn't wish to add another cooler which would limit Harlies lying area. Cannot have that. She is used to comfort to stretch with her dewalt battery powered fan blowing on her. So attention was focused back on the factory designed live well pedestal.

After much thought I decided to epoxy some of the remaining two sided aluminum to the bottom of the interior of the pedestal. A search of soft sided coolers revealed one made in a cylinder sack design. The order is placed and awaiting. Of course it is backordered. The plan is to place the soft sided cooler inside the live well with pedestal, place ice, food, and drinks added. The top rolled up and the set lowered. Thats the plan at least. Will give up date once it arrives and I field test it. Well that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed the posts of "The Cane Pole Rig."

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Neat!!!

That's a nice piece of ingenuity for sure that should serve you well. I certainly understand as well as anyone that jumping up and down to put fish in the livewell during a hot bite will (no doubt) wear a man out pretty quick. I always stationed a cooler in a more convenient position behind my swivel seat in the front while spider rigging... were it was a much simpler matter to just swivel the seat a bit and drop the fish in the cooler on ice and then swivel back to the position from which I simply re-bait/re-deploy the rod quickly and can continue fishing. It also eliminates having to transfer the fish from the livewell and into the cooler and on ice when the trip is over too.

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Originally Posted by Special K

That's a nice piece of ingenuity for sure that should serve you well. I certainly understand as well as anyone that jumping up and down to put fish in the livewell during a hot bite will (no doubt) wear a man out pretty quick. I always stationed a cooler in a more convenient position behind my swivel seat in the front while spider rigging... were it was a much simpler matter to just swivel the seat a bit and drop the fish in the cooler on ice and then swivel back to the position from which I simply re-bait/re-deploy the rod quickly and can continue fishing. It also eliminates having to transfer the fish from the livewell and into the cooler and on ice when the trip is over too.

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thanks. I’m always looking to tidy up and square away stuff in a boat. I have no wish tripping and falling out.