Pole Fishing From a Chair? Is It Possible?

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Pole fishing from a chair. Is it possible to do it? What is the best way to go about it, and what are the alternatives?

Is it possible to use a fishing chair and pole fish? It is, but it’s always going to be harder work. When you use a fishing seat box you have nothing behind you. This gives you 360 degrees on which to turn and when you are using a massive pole it becomes very tricky to turn the way you want to. However, that’s not to say you can’t do it, it’s just always going to be a bit tricker.

Personally, if I am just popping in for an evening session on my local lake then I will just throw my pole, chair, and a bait box in the car and off I go. I know I am only going to be pleasure fishing for a few hours. I can’t be bothered to carry my heavy seat box, which to be honest needs a trolley to carry it over any distance. So for that reason, that’s when I will look to use a chair.

If I know I am out all-day fishing the pole, or in a match then I will always take my seat box as there’s a chance I will want to fish at 16m at some point.

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What about match fishing?

I guess it all depends on what type of match you are going to fish. If you know it’s a lake where 90% of the time you will be feeder fishing then I don’t see any issue in taking just your chair. If it is going to be a snake lake venue where you need 16m of the pole then personally I think it’s impossible to fish it from a chair.

One issue when match fishing in a chair is that it will be very hard to attach the keepnets to your chair as there is no footplate to attach them to. Now, this won’t be an issue at most venues as there will be some grass banking where you can attach a keepnet into the ground. However, some venues only have hard-standing pegs which would cause an issue because you have no box to attach them to.

Are chairs too low for pole fishing?

The chair I have is a lot lower when using a pole. It’s actually that low, that I ship my pole back on the grass bank at the venue I go to (there’s no hard ground) but shipping a long pole back would be hard work.

There is another option though, and that is to buy longer telescopic legs for your chair. When doing my research I found this as an option that a lot of people did.

Pole Rests For a Chair

There are various attachments you can get for your pole that will work on the chair.

A side tray will work on the legs of some of the feeder chairs without any issues and you can also attach a pole sock to the other side to help with pole support.

Just remember that your chair isn’t going to weigh as much as your box if you attach an umbrella to it so be careful of the wind.

Chairs are better for your back

The main reason you are likely here is that you have a bad back and fishing the pole from your chair gives you some relief from back pain. Fishing for long periods of time is enough to make anyone’s backache.

There is another option to consider, which is adding a seat rest to your box like the one below.

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I have seen a lot of fishermen use these and I think they are a great idea. You get some back support but the chair swivels which makes it ideal for when you want to spin around and fish in the margins or easily use a margin pole.

To attach these you may have to remove the padded seat from your current box but I think its a happy medium between a box and a chair.

What about cost?

I will just cover this briefly, but fishing boxes can cost up to £1000 if you want a top-of-the-range one, whereas a chair is a lot cheaper so it does depend on how much you have to spend. However, you can get good seat boxes for only a few hundred pounds so this could affect your choice.

Some people end up with 2 setups

This is almost essentially what I have. I have my lightweight chair and rod setup for feeder fishing or a day’s laid-back pleasure fishing and my match setup to pole fish. That’s my choice though and I do have more fishing tackle that I need!