Discipline

Bolentino (boat) Rods

Bolentino is the Italian way of fishing the bottom from a boat. A lead takes a multi-hook rig straight down over a mark, the boat holds position, and the angler works the rig just off the seabed. Nothing is cast, so the rod is rated for the lead it carries rather than for anything it throws, and the range runs from twenty grams of shot to two hundred grams of it.

Rods: 197
Makers: 3
Type: Spinning / Pole
Length: 3.9'–27.3'

Filter database by this discipline Back to database

How bolentino is fished

The boat sits over a mark and the rig goes down. A bolentino rig is a paternoster: a lead at the bottom and short traces above it carrying several baited hooks, so one drop presents a spread at the depth the fish are holding. The angler feels for the bottom, lifts the lead clear, and works the rig in the metre or two above it.

Depth and current set everything else. In sheltered shallow water a light rod and twenty to eighty grams will hold, and the fishing is delicate enough to feel small fish mouthing a bait. Over deeper offshore ground, or in tide, the lead climbs toward two hundred grams and the rod stiffens to match. Hence the broad spread of capacities.

The quarry is Mediterranean bottom stock, a mixed bag by design. Pandora, sea bream, scorpionfish and picarel come from moderate depths, with larger dentex and pagre over deeper rough ground. The multi-hook rig suits that mix, since a single drop can bring up two or three species at once.

Because the boat provides the position, the rod's job is contact and lifting. This is one of the few disciplines here where the angler's skill sits mostly in reading a rig they cannot see.

Reading the numbers

The rating is the lead, in grams

The rating is lead capacity in grams, 20-200 g, and it is a true range rather than a ceiling
50-150 g and 80-200 g are the common grades; 20-80 g covers shallow, sheltered work
Some models carry the grade in the name instead of a spec field
No line rating and no power class is published anywhere in this discipline
'no cime' means the rod ships without spare top sections

How bolentino rods are rated

Casting weight across the 133 rods in this discipline that publish one.

Casting weight (g)

133 rods with a casting weight · busiest at 100-170g

Where it comes from

Bolentino is the everyday boat fishing of the Italian coast, and its tackle diverged from northern European boat fishing in two visible ways.

The first is telescopic construction. Around half the rods here collapse, including short boat models where a northern maker would build two pieces and think nothing of it. On a small boat with several anglers aboard, a rod that shortens to a fraction of its length is worth real money in stowage, and Italian makers took that seriously enough that one of the two brands here builds its entire bolentino range that way.

The second is a branch of very long rods. Most of the range sits under 3.35 m, which is a recognisable boat stick, but a distinct group runs past five metres and reaches 8.3 m. Those are for fishing a rig away from the hull and holding line clear of the boat, and they have no real equivalent in Atlantic boat fishing. They are a different tool from the short rods, not simply a longer version of them.

Grading kept its own vocabulary too. Alongside rods quoted as a plain gram range, Tubertini sells telescopic series graded by name and number together, from Ultra-Light 100g up to Strong 300g. It is the same idea as a lead capacity, expressed the way the Italian market expects to read it, and it explains why so few rods here fill in a conventional power column at all.

Choosing a bolentino rod

Choose the lead capacity for the depth and the tide, not for the fish. Twenty to eighty grams covers sheltered, shallow work. Fifty to a hundred and fifty is the general-purpose middle. Eighty to two hundred is for depth and current. These are true ranges, so a heavy rod really is poor with light lead.

Decide which of the two tools you want. Under about 3.35 m you are buying a conventional short boat rod for fishing close to the hull. Past five metres you are buying something else entirely, a long rod for holding a rig away from the boat, and the two are not interchangeable at any price.

Expect telescopic, and treat it as normal. About half of this range collapses, boat lengths included. It is a stowage decision made on small crowded boats, and it is not the compromise a northern European angler might assume.

Read the model name for the grade. Several ranges put their power class there instead of in a spec field, as Ultra-Light, Light, Medium or Strong with a gram figure attached. If a rod looks like it has no rating at all, the name is usually where it went.

Check what ships with the rod. A model marked no cime comes without the spare top sections that these ranges otherwise include, which matters both for price comparison and for how the rod is meant to be matched to conditions.

The bolentino cohort at a glance

Length, rod weight and maker across every rod declared for this fishery.

Length

197 rods with a length

Rod weight

77 rods with a published weight

Makers

Trabucco101
Tubertini69
Colmic27

Featured bolentino rods

One rod from each maker that builds for this fishery, drawn from the ideal envelope above.

Tubertini Sea Way 10'6"

Spinning 10'6"

Trabucco Iridium Iridium Over Deep 3m

Spinning 9'10"

Colmic Sanset 6'3"

Spinning 6'3"

More bolentino rods

A selection from the 197 rods declared for this fishery.

Tubertini F1 Telescopic 2000 Strong (no cime) 300g 13'1"

Spinning 13'1"

Trabucco Swims Swims Deep Quiver 3m 250g

Spinning 9'10"

Trabucco Astore X Astore X T-Boat 4m 21-600

Spinning 13'1"

Colmic Target Boat 7'10"

Spinning 7'10"

Colmic Sanset 6'11"

Spinning 6'11"

Trabucco Achab Achab PRO Boat 2.4m 200g

Spinning 7'10"

Show all 197 bolentino rods →

Related disciplines

Traina (Mediterranean trolling) Drifting Bolognese Kaijo tsuribori (sea pen) Beachcasting (continental surf)