For several years there was a bunch of young guys, maybe still teenagers, pinching rods out of bullbar mounted rod holders when people stopped at the round about on Phillip Island. Tourist fisherman often drove around the island back to their camps etc with the rods on show and the pricks would hide in waiting at the first roundabout, they were quick and they sometimes missed getting the rod out cleanly but the bastards were good and ripped off a heap of dollars worth of rods before they were caught.
For the time it takes to pull a rod down and put it back together anything longer than an hour off the beach and not using the rod I just pull it down, two minutes either end of a fishing session doesn't make or break life. I don't even leave the rods in the back of the ute when I go down to the holiday house, everything of value comes out, not because it's a bad area, just because it's no good to me if some prick does decide to knock it off.