thumb|upright=1.35|Three punt pole shoes in varying states of wear
A setting pole or quant (quant pole) is a pole, handled by a crew member, to move boats, barges (in which case it is also called a barge pole) or punts by pushing the craft in the desired direction. The pole is used to push against the river or sea bed or, in some cases, the bank of the river. If used from the stern of the craft, the action is usually called "punting." Especially on larger vessels, it is more effective if the operator starts at the bow and walks aft along a side deck, pushing against the bottom all the waythis action is called "quanting" or "setting". If there is a short stretch where the water is too deep for the pole to reach the bottom, the pole can be used as a paddle. Whilst this is substantially less effective than a bladed oar or paddle, it is sufficient to keep the boat moving.
A setting pole is usually made of ash or a similar resilient wood or of hollow metal so that in either case it floats if left in the water. They are usually capped on one or both ends with metal to withstand the repeated pushing against the bottom and rocks, and to help the end of the pole sink to the bottom more quickly. A barge quant often has a cap at the top and a prong at the bottom to stop it from sinking into the mud. On the Norfolk Broads these are called a Bott and a Shoe respectively.
It can range in length from , to over .
Regional variants
American West
thumb|Setting poles propelling Lewis and Clark's keelboat on the back of the 2004 [[Nickel (United States coin)|U.S. Nickel]]
Setting poles were used widely on the rivers of the 18th and 19th century American West to propel keelboats. The 1804 Lewis and Clark expedition relied on setting poles to propel their barge on the Missouri River. They brought six purpose-built setting poles, each eighteen feet long and capped with iron on the bottom, though they ended up losing some and replacing them with dog-travois poles taken from an abandoned Native American camp.
Mesopotamian Marshes
Setting poles are also used widely on the Mesopotamian Marshes to propel the mashoof canoes used by the Marsh Arabs. These poles are called marda (مُرْدِيّ in Literary Arabic) and are long and made from wood and sturdy reeds.
Northeastern North America
thumb|left|poling a canoe on the [[Allagash Wilderness Waterway|Allagash River about 1940]]
Lighter setting poles, commonly made of spruce, were widely used in the shallow, often rocky rivers of northeastern North America to propel canoes, especially in very shallow water and when going upriver against a current. This technique makes it possible to propel a loaded canoe up through substantial whitewater, something which is very hard or impossible to do with paddles. Some modern recreational paddlers still use this technique but it is much less common that it was in the times when people in this region used canoes as an essential means of transportation.
Oxbridge
The best known form of setting pole is the single-ended punt pole used in Oxford and Cambridge. A setting pole may also be used in river canoeing for navigating portions of river where the water is too shallow for a paddle to create thrust, or where the desired direction of travel is opposite a current moving fast enough to make paddling inefficient. Setting poles are also useful for fending off drifting logs and negotiating sandbars, shoals, and rocks.