Penn Hold down clamp question

[xumeng12]

I just threw away the old wing nut clamp on a Penn reel and replaced it with a new style Graphite clamp with the long screw nut. The clamp had a tab sticking off to one side with a hole in it. My question is what is it for? I thought maybe to hool a line to it and hook to your belt in case ya dropped the pole off the boat to keep from loosing it?
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[Tarpon4me]

That loop is actually quite handy. It's where you put your hook when you're not fishing, so you can wind up the line tight. It keeps you from having to stick the hook in the eye of the rod, and tighten it down when not in use. Putting the hook in the eye of the rod is actually a bad idea. I can't count how many eyelets i've popped off because of doing that. I finally learned. If I must use the eye to secure the hook, I don't hook it on the eyelet, I hook it off to the side, on the frame of the eye.

The biggest reason they put the hook rest on the reel's back support is because more times than not, say like for a king mackerel rig made with single strand wire, it's not a wind on leader. So, you can only wind up the line so far. Securing the lines when not in use is, so they aren't swinging around in the boat injuring people, is really important. Solution, put a hook catch on the reel support.
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