5 Outrigger Mistakes That Cost Me Real Money

Joel Elliott
2026-05-01T18:15:35-07:00

Outriggers double your fishing spread but they're unforgiving. Here are five mistakes I made early on — and what each one cost me before I figured it out.

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Don't make these mistakes

Outriggers are one of the best upgrades you can put on a saltwater boat. They double your effective fishing spread, separate your lines so they don't tangle, and let you run lures at different angles to find the strike zone faster.

They're also one of the easiest pieces of gear to screw up. Every mistake on this list cost me real money. Every one of them is preventable. Don't repeat them.

Mistake #1: Cheap base mounts

Cost: One $600 outrigger pole and the rod that was on it.

First set of riggers I bought, I went all-in on premium poles and saved money on the bases. Bought aluminum bases that looked solid in the box. Three months later, in a 4-foot beam swell, the port-side base sheared right off the gunwale. Took the pole, the rod, and a perfectly good Penn International with it.

Lee's and Tigress make stainless bases that cost more than aluminum. Pay for it. Your bases are the single point of failure for your entire outrigger setup. The poles can be replaced cheap. Rods and reels in the water are gone.

Mistake #2: Running release clips that are too tight

Cost: Probably 6-8 fish over a season I should have caught.

Outrigger releases clip your line to the pole halyard. When a fish hits, the release pops, the line drops back to the rod, and you fight it normally. Tension matters.

Set too tight, the release won't pop on softer strikes — coho, smaller chinook, anything that doesn't smash the gear. You watch the rod load up, see no release, and then the fish is gone.

Set the tension to release with a steady 4-6 pounds of pull. Test it at the dock. If you can't feel a pull-test trigger it, neither can a fish.

Mistake #3: Not greasing the halyard pulleys

Cost: Two halyards and a half-day of fishing while I tried to free a frozen pulley with the boat rocking in 3-foot swell.

The little pulley at the top of the outrigger pole runs your halyard up and down. It's exposed to salt all day, every trip. Greased once a year with marine grease, it lasts forever. Ungreased, it rusts solid in about 18 months.

When that pulley seizes, you can't raise or lower a halyard. Means you can't reset a release without bringing the whole pole down. Means you're done fishing that side until you fix it. And in any kind of seas, getting the pole down to fix it is a one-arm wrestling match while a 12-foot pole flails around.

Marine grease, top of the pulley, once a season. Takes 90 seconds. Not optional.

Mistake #4: Pole length wrong for the boat

Cost: $400 to replace too-long poles I should have measured for first.

First time I bought outriggers, I bought 18-foot poles because the salesman said bigger spread = more fish. Mounted them on my 22-foot boat. Looked impressive at the dock.

Out on the water, the spread was so wide my lures kept getting caught in the wake and tumbling, the leverage was destroying my bases in any chop, and turning the boat became a circus. Came home, sold the 18-footers used, bought 14-footers that match the boat. Problem solved. $400 lesson.

General rule: pole length should be 60-70% of your boat length. 22-foot boat = 13-15 foot poles. Bigger isn't better — matched is better.

Mistake #5: Treating outriggers like furniture instead of running gear

Cost: Slow corrosion on everything. No single big bill, just a constant drip of replacement costs over years.

Outriggers spend 95% of their life folded against the boat, ignored. People wash the boat and skip the riggers. They forget about the halyards. They never check the bases. Then one day everything fails at once.

Outriggers are running gear, not decoration. Rinse them after every saltwater trip. Inspect the bases every couple weeks. Run the halyards up and down to make sure they move freely. Check the release clips. Tighten any base bolts that have backed off (they will).

Five minutes per trip. Same routine as the rest of your gear. The riggers don't get a pass.

Outriggers are running gear, not decoration. They get the same routine as everything else.

The summary

Buy good bases. Tune the release tension. Grease the pulleys. Match the pole length to the boat. Maintain them like real gear.

Do those five things, and outriggers are one of the best upgrades you'll ever make. Skip them, and they'll be one of the most expensive.