You want the ideal fishboat? Then I say you’ll need at least one rodholder per LOA. But cramming all of those holders onto a boat isn’t always easy, especially if you have other non-fishing items (shame on you!) that you want to mount along the gunwales. There are a few mounting systems out there that let you swap items out (Talon and RAM mounts come to mind,) but they usually don’t have the beefiness to support heavy-duty trolling rigs. Lately I discovered a different line of universal mounts, called Burnewiin, which can do this job. Here’s the proof:




How many rod holders can you cram onto one boat? These guys certainly pushed the limit.

How many rod holders can you cram onto one boat? These guys certainly pushed the limit.


I can count 26 currently in use, and there’s no doubt more are present. LUV IT.


The difference between Burnewiins and other universal mounts is the fact that these are 316-grads stainless steel, and they can flush-mount onto your gunwale much like a traditional rod holder. Click a lever on the side of it, and you can drop in or take out any number of accessories: a rotating, three-position rodholder, a knife with a built-in sheath, a cleat, a downrigger mount, a cutting board–even a BBQ grill. I tried wrassling them around, and found them to be extremely solid. The stainless versions (composites are available, too) are tuna-capable and I wouldn’t hesitate to put a 50-class reel set to 20 pounds of drag into one.

Of course, nothing in this world is perfect, and that goes for the Burnewiin gear I checked out, too. The problem is price: one of these top-shelf rodholders MSRP’s at $420, and a gunwale mount you’ll drop it into costs $150. Let’s say you’re rigging out a 26′ center console, and you want 8 holders in the cockpit for kite fishing and trolling, and 3 on each side of the boat forward of the console, for drift fishing. You’d be spending 8 grand, excluding labor cost for mounting. You could go to the composite versions at $40 per mount and $60 per holder, but if you fish for anything larger then stripers or salmon that would defeat the whole purpose. The bottom line? If you’ve got suitcases full of Andrew Jacksons and a passion for the best fishing gear around, check this stuff out (www.burnewiin.com). The rest of us will just gawk.

Written by: Lenny Rudow
With over two decades of experience in marine journalism, Lenny Rudow has contributed to publications including YachtWorld, boats.com, Boating Magazine, Marlin Magazine, Boating World, Saltwater Sportsman, Texas Fish & Game, and many others. Lenny is a graduate of the Westlawn School of Yacht Design, and he has won numerous BWI and OWAA writing awards.