Yeh, that's the way arm/disarm work. On your shard, you might just be able to drop the pole on your #CHARID, but on Alexandria (RunUO), you can't do that. So you might need to 'seed' the script at first by arming the fishing pole (by hand), and then disarming it with the macro.
I already tried to 'seed' the script by equipping the pole and then using the macro to disarm. Script still did the same loop, although I didn't try a different item to seed it such as a spellbook or weapon. I could be wrong, but I don't see other items behaving anything differently which is why I just edited that out of the script.
There's no way to detect what's carried without alot of code, but perhaps you can work with that code and a little prep work before you start your scripting session.
EDIT: I misunderstood your meaning! That is exactly what I've done. Edited the code and as long as I don't have anything equipped when I start the script, I'm golden!
I think I'll start small like editing code to do an extra function of some type, test, try again, test, and eventually learn how to add, modify, and create larger, more complex things. I'm NOT a programmer of any sort and while I've always tinkered a bit with scripts and mods and such, I have no idea how to do any of it efficiently or often, correctly. My thought: start small, learn fast, and have less chance of giving up from getting overwhelmed. Any suggestions on scripting, programming and the like... feel free to pm me so we don't take over this (fantastic) thread.