Fishing rod holder

Claim 1

A fishing rod holder for automatically moving a fish rod supported by said holder in response to movements of a fish line on said rod comprising a stand bent intermediate its ends providing a ground engaging leg and an angled support section, a lower hinge plate that is of a generally flat section having upwardly turned ears adjacent the bend of said stand mounted on the angled section of said stand, an upper hinge plate of construction similar to said lower hinge plate having downwardly turned ears, all of said ears cooperatively providing aligned openings therethrough, a hinge pin interconnecting the openings of said ears and providing a pivot mount for said upper hinge plate, a rod receiving component on said upper hinge plate adapted to receive and hold a fishing rod, aligned receptacles disposed on the forward ends of each of said upper and lower hinge plates, a latch element pivotally received in the receptacles of a first of said hinge plates, a catch element received in the receptacles of the second of said hinge plates, resilient spring means on said holder and operatively connected to elements thereof for urging said upper hinge plate away from a closed position adjacent said lower hinge plate, said latch and catch elements being operative to hold said upper hinge plate in the closed position adjacent said lower hinge plate when engaged, hook means on said latch element to receive said fish line whereby the tensioning of said line operates to release said catch, and said latch element having alternate catch engaging positions that are of varied slope with respect to the pivot of the latch element whereby the fish line tension required to release said catch is varied when alternate engaging positions are used.