what your doing works, I also use a dowel and took 2 lengths of parachord, maybe a foot long and made loops hung from cross poles of hub, where I slide the reel dowel in, then I mounted 2 cheap spinning reels back to back with an eye screw out in front on the dowel for decoy drop, I reversed one of the reel handles so they are on the same side.lots of guys just put a cheap rod on the ice , but I have had pike hit my deke so hard, the deke and rod/reel would be gone. I also bought 2 rattle reels and was just going to tie a rope from one ceiling x-pole to the other and them clip the reels on the rope. On more then one occasion, I have taken my hub down, and could not get it to fold up because I didn't take the pole out,,duh