depending on what type of fishing your doing what constitutes handing off the rod, say two cliants in the boat with a guide, i'm going to use springer fishing with bait divers as an example poles are in the rod holders cliant one limits, you still can legally catch 4 more so cliant two basically has 2 rods he is fishing is it the prinicaple of the matter that technically one of the rods is the guides and if the fish is not hooked on the rod cliant two has been useing all day its not really cliants twos fish? i know it doesn't really feel the same when your assigned rod doesn't hook the fish ?