I see from the bottom of your post that you welcome constructive criticism so my thoughts are below.
My first thought is that I like images that people capture document their own activities. And I fish recreationally quite a bit so I enjoy aspects of the sport through other's eyes. Thanks for sharing. I look forward to you sharing more.
I capture a lot of fishing related images (on ocean, lakes, streams etc), some for personal usage, some for business websites and blogs, some for club newsletters, and some for friends. The following are my subjective comments based on my personal preferences. Don't take any of my comments personally. I don't consider myself to be an exceptional photographer and am always looking for ways to improve.
Also, I have retained many image that either at the time of review, or over time, I decided were not outstanding, or even poor, but I have retained them because the bring back memories for me.
You didn't ask, but my favorite lens on a DX body for angling and angling/scenery related photography from it a boat is a 10-20 or 10-24mm lens. I can get close to in boat subject and I don't need to back up and fall out when capturing something more expansive that is in the boat.
First image:
The tilted horizon makes this image look a bit off in my opinion. While in some cases the a tilted horizon due to a swell works when you have some other principle subject in the frame, it just looks off to me here. Potentially the rods might add something to this type of capture, especially if they have some interesting colors, but in this case they are subdued and the tips are cut off so I do not think they add anything. They might have added something if there were brightly colored lures hung on some guides. In this image it looks from the line that you may be trolling but it is difficult to tell from the angle. Usually, if I have rods in an image like this I want them to stand out a bit and in a backlit situation I will hit them with some fill flash, usually with something between -1.7EV and -3.0EV flash compensation. Or I well set a manual flash level to a low power and set exposure for the background (sky/water), which is what I probably would have done for this image.. Just enough toilluminate the rods and reveal some color (if they are not black, gray, or charcoal) without blowing them out. Finally, I'm not quite sure what your subject is here. My eye is drawn to the sun glint on the water, but on its own I do not find this interesting with the plain sky. I have captured hundreds of images with wakes behind boats but over time I found them to be more interesting if there was something else of interest in the image like cloud formations, landmarks on shore, groups of birds, another boat, an angler or passenger, etc.
Second Image:
My second favorite of the four images. Reminds me of a lot of days on the water. I think your subject here is the gear (rods, holders, downriggers, etc.). However my eye isn't drawn to any particular area of the photo. Following the lines of the rods pushes the eye to the lower right but there isn't much interesting in that area. The rods and the downrigger sort of fan out from area. If I were capturing this I probably would have tried it from a bit farther away or using a wider angle lens. With a wide angle lens you may have been able to capture both downriggers along with the rods fanning out, I would also have tried it from lower down and looking more horizontally toward the horizon. A polarized would help partially squash the specular highlights and reflections on the water also well as some of the metal parts.
Third image:
My favorite of the four. Some people might not like this. I do somewhat: I like textures in the sand at beaches and am often looking for interesting ways to capture images there. When I do capture images like this I like to find something in the view that captures my eye. A shell, stone, feather, some debris that has washed up or blown in, a pattern in the sand that is distinct from the rest of the sand. There is a little stick here with an interesting shadow but it is too small to capture my eye immediately.
Fourth image:
What is the subject here? The sun glint? The image seems ok as it is if it reflects what you intended. I incorporate sun glint into many of my sunrise and sunset on the water photos, but usually to provide some ambiance for an image that has something else as as subject. This is an image that I might use as a background for something else on a website or an illustration in an article, putting text or a logo or something over it. This is a tough shot too due to a very wide dynamic range of the scene. I think you did a decent job here of not blowing out too much of sun glint and not pushing too much of the water towards black.
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If cameras and lenses can have autofocus then why can't I?
