Viking Solutions 2-in-1 Truck Fishing Rod Carrier and Storage Wall Rack - Aluminum - 10 Rods

Video Transcript for Viking Solutions Fishing Rod Carrier for Truck Beds Review

Adam: What's going on, everybody Adam here with etrailer.com. Today we are going to be taking a look at a Viking Solution Rod Carrier for you guys' truck beds.This isn't just going to go in your truck bed. It also doubles as a wall mount. So let's just say you got your rods hanging up in your garage. You have a day where you want to go fishing. All you really have to do is grab the whole entire rack, really light, it's made of aluminum, and you can just throw it in the bed of your truck.

And you do get some ratchet straps to strap them down because now it's not going to go anywhere. It's going to be able to hold about 10 fishing rods, and I really think I would use it just because it's the best of both worlds. It organizes your garage and then it also gets all your fun gear to the water so you can catch some fish.What we're going to do in this video is we're going to show you a couple of examples of when we would use the fishing rod carrier. We're going to try it on a different array of trucks, just to see if it's going to fit as well as it does in a Silverado in some of the other trucks. We're going to do a smaller truck, and we're also going to take a look and see how it does when we have a toolbox in it.

Also, we're going to throw it on a boat, see if that works. And then we're going to go ahead and hang it on the wall, and with the mix of all that, we're going to give you guys some features and specs. Well, let's just go ahead and get started.We have a 2020 Silverado with a 5-1/2' bed. This is what we did. We went ahead and put the rack on the most upright position, and that is just getting us the angle that we need.

And these are the straps that we get. They got a little loop right here, go ahead and hook that on and then hook it down to your bed. One thing you got to do is try to tie it down to somewhere down farther on the truck bed than the loop that we have right here, just because we want that force to be facing down. One thing that I have noticed though, with this setup on the Silverado where the tie downs are, as you can see, I'm literally maxing out this ratchet strap. It's a little long in my opinion, but that's just for this application.

It could work a lot better in other applications. So that's just something I noticed, a little short strap, but it still comes with the kit, which is awesome.Another thing I kind of think about, as of right now, we have a decent tilt on our rods, so what we're going to do is we're going to go over the adjustments. We do have a lot of adjustments, and as of right now, this is going to be the most aggressive angle that we have. As you guys can see, we do have a nice angle here, but right about here is where the top of our truck is, so we actually have some stuff kind of hanging a little bit taller than what our vehicle actually is. Well, we can actually adjust that.What we're going to do is just go down to the feet part of the carrier. We have a little pin that all we really got to do is kind of just fold it back, undo it. It's just your basic pin, just like you have on your trailer or something like that. And then we can be able to actually adjust those, so we're going to undo that on both sides, just like this, and now we're going to be able to actually adjust the height.With the 5-1/2' bed, I'm just curious to see if we can lay it completely down without hitting our tailgate on our rods. This is going to just vary depending on how long your guys' rods are. As of right now, we can pretty much put it to the lowest setting, folding the carrier on both sides before we really start having any issues with it hitting the tailgate. And that pretty much folds almost flat, but to be honest, we're not really hitting. So again, that does just depend on your guys' rods. If you guys have some of those salt water fishing rods for you guys on the coast, definitely going to want to angle this up a little bit higher, but it is really nice to be able to have all those adjustments. This is the lowest setting, and before you saw the highest setting. And we're going to have one, two, three, four, five different settings in between to pick from.Now what we're going to do, we're actually going to go ahead and drive around the etrailer parking lot and try to find some other trucks that have a little bit different setups and see how they fit, so let's go. All right, so we have Rob's truck. You guys might recognize him from some other videos. He's got a toolbox in the back of his Silverado, so let's see how it works with the toolbox.I just set this up the same way we had in the other Silverado, but now I have it in Rob's Silverado. And one thing I ran into, yes, it does clear underneath this toolbox. It's going to depend on what kind of toolbox you guys have. But if we didn't have the open face here, as you can see, we are having a little bit of contact with our reel and it's not really able to slide all the way back towards the edge of the cab of the truck. So, that's going to kind of make tying it down kind of difficult just because as we are going to cinch it down, it's still going to have room to move back, which then it's going to put a lot of that pressure on that open face, as you can see here.So if you guys don't have open faces, you guys can use it like that. If you guys have a toolbox, it's going to fit underneath there in the lowest setting, but probably not ideal for Rob's truck, so let's just go ahead. I'm going to flip it around. We saw a couple of you guys actually having it facing towards your cab and going over the toolbox, so we're going to go ahead and do that.I have it this way, but we are going to make a little bit of adjustments just because my rods are kind of resting upon the toolbox. So, same exact deal as before, just go ahead and go to one of the sides. We're going to have to do it on both of them. And we're just going to go ahead and take pin off like this, slide it up. I think we'll probably be able to get away with the second or third one. I'm going to go ahead and do them on both sides at the same time. It's a little bit easier that way. A little bit looser. So I'm going to go . I want to go the next two settings up, so two holes in between the last one and the one you're seeing here right now, you kind of put that into place.This is definitely going to be able to clear that toolbox just so I'm not bending my rods. They'll be fine. I just like to not really put them through that much stress if I don't have to. This means we don't have to. So, that's pretty much it. As you guys can see, works great clearing the toolbox. Good deal.One thing that we're still having an issue with is the ratchet straps. Again, way too long. We need a really short strap for this just because we have it completely maxed out on both sides and we are not getting the tension that we want. Another thing too to take into account is where are you guys are going to really tie this down at, because we do want to make sure it's going to be lower than this point here, because we do want it to be pulling it down. If we have these things tied up here and we tighten them down all the way, eventually the rod holder's just going to be floating and hanging there. We don't want that, so definitely try to find a lower point than here to tie them down with. And I would highly suggest getting some sort of cam buckle type strap, but something definitely a lot smaller.All right, on to the next candidate. Thank you, Rob, for letting us use your truck, but I think what we're going to do next is actually go over here to Joe's Ranger. This is going to be a mid-size pickup truck, a lot narrower bed and not near as long, because Rob's was a 6-1/2' Silverado. The white one that we did earlier was a 5-1/2'. This is going to be a totally different ball game, folks, so let's go ahead and see what's going on.All right, guys. We got a problem. One of the problems is, yes, we can maybe put it in the bed of the truck like this, but the size of this truck bed and the size of the rack kind of conflict a little bit. One of the conflictions is we tried to do it kind of how we did it on Rob's truck, where we face it up and away, but the issue here is the bottom bracket, meaning this guy right here, is about 23" long. So, we only have about 18" from the start of our wheel well to the bulkhead of the bed of the truck, so that doesn't work, and the same with the back. It's about 18" from the tailgate all the way to the start of the wheel well hump there in the bed, so that's kind of an issue.Yes, we could put it sideways, but probably not, just because you guys' rods, if they're long enough, they're probably going to be hanging off the side and you guys don't want that. Probably not a good idea. But if you guys do want to maybe kind of just put it up, leaning it against the wheel wells and then up against the bulkhead of your pickup truck, you guys can go ahead and do that. Just go ahead and strap your straps down. That should be relatively secure and everything like that. But this is probably the only orientation that I would drive it in. So just keep that in mind, if you guys have a midsize truck.And another limiting factor we have with this rack is it is going to be about 42" wide, so we have about 39-1/2" between the wheel well humps in the bed of the truck, so it really doesn't fit too well. It's really close, but no cigar. We are not getting there. So, this is definitely one of your only options if it is at all for you mid-size truck owners.Moving on onto the next setup. One thing I noticed when I was carrying this thing, it's really light. I mean, I only have about three rods in here, but just the carrier itself is only about 12 pounds, so even if you guys do have this completely loaded up with all 10 rods, even if they are somewhat heavy duty rods, honestly, I doubt it's going to go over 25 pounds. So, it's not really going to be too difficult to take it off of your wall and then just throw it into the bed of your truck.Now we're going to go ahead and find ourselves a boat. We got a little boat here. Ah, pontoon boat. Let's see if it'll fit on there. The nice thing about this, if you guys are either having your rod holder hung up in your garage, or even just in the bed of your truck, of course, and you bring it out to your boat, just pick it up, your rods are ready. You can go ahead and just toss it in your boat, hardly any setup time, so you can get out on the water a lot quicker. Because I know usually I don't really have a whole lot of time and whenever I do have time to fish, I want to fish. This way, everything's nice and ready. Let's go see how well it fits.So we've got a pontoon boat and it pretty much fits. One thing that we noticed, yes, we can actually use the included straps, which is nice just because the distance is a little bit more than what we had in the bed of the truck. But one thing that I noticed, as you guys can tell, we are using these tie-downs here, and obviously the only tie-downs on the rod holder itself. What we've noticed is that these straps naturally want to come in line with each other, so as we started strapping them down it started to shift the holder forward just to get these nice and even, and that resulted in us having a little bit of overhang.So, if you guys don't really mind that . I mean, to be honest, it's actually still a little bit behind the 'toons right here, so I don't really think we're going to have any issue. We're definitely not adding any length to the boat, minus the rods, but I don't really think the rods are going to do much at all. Usually when you pull into a dock or something like that, there's plenty of room in front of you and it's not really going to hit the dock and break your rod, so that is definitely a plus.But another thing I was thinking about too, I mean, I go tightlining a lot. Usually when I go fishing, I have about four rods with me. Two of them, I fish with constantly and just throwing in, reeling in, and the others, I usually just throw some catfish bait on and tightline. With this, I mean, it kind of holds your rod so you can go ahead and just kind of put it in there, have a couple lines out while you're throwing a couple other lines out, it's going to help your fishing, and hopefully you'll catch some more fish.All in all, I would definitely say that the rod holder works really well with this boat specifically. We're just pretty much using what we have here, the tie-downs that are already here. But if you guys are one of those that kind of customize your guys' boat, we could even hang this like we hang it on a wall somewhere on the sides of the boat or wherever is best for you guys. If you guys do find a really cool spot to put this on your truck or even on your boat, go ahead and take a picture and upload it on the website. I'm just curious to see what you guys use it for.We're about to go back home to my shed and we're going to hang it on the wall so you guys can see that. But first I wanted to show you, we solved the problem of the straps. You know how the straps we're a little too long that came with the kit I just went ahead and grabbed some etrailer cam buckle straps, looped them through both holes here, and it is nice and tight. We have a little bit of movement, but not much at all. This thing is not going anywhere. Problem solved, so let's go ahead and get on the road.Whenever we are mounting it up into our shed, all you really need to do is hold up the bracket and we have a series of holes, so as you slide them along, eventually we're going to be able to line up one, two, three studs. I highly suggest screwing them into studs, so let's just go ahead and get it going. The hardware is included and all we're really going to need is a drill with a Phillips bit. Let's get that going. Start screwing it in. Now with that bracket up, all we can do is we can take the rod holder out of the bed of our truck or wherever we're at. Go ahead and slide it on. Easy as that, and check it out. We have it nice and organized. We'll have all of our rods sitting in there ready to go for the next time.All right, so I'm going to go ahead and go fishing. But one thing that I found out, this thing fits perfectly in the back of the Ranger, so let's go ahead and take it off the wall real quick and put it in the Ranger. We might have to face it back this way, but it still is going to fit perfectly on the inside of the Ranger. This is awesome, because then you guys can go ahead and go way back in the woods to that really good sweet spot that you like to fish, and it's awesome. Cool thing about it too, we can even use the straps to strap it down. All right, guys, we're all loaded up and we're ready to go fishing. Let's go.Well, we're here. My favorite fishing spot, and me and Aidan are just going to go ahead and start fishing. The nice thing about this, just the fact we could take it out of the Ranger, put it up right next to the lake, and we can have all of our rods right next to us. Hope you guys enjoyed the video. And again, this was the Viking Solution Rod Rack, and I'm Adam and this is Aidan from etrailer. See you guys.