Learn the Different Types of Nets to Use When Fly Fishing

Video Transcript

"I’m Jim Dowd at Zoar Outdoor for Expert Village to talk with you about fly casting and fly fishing. Using a landing net is the best way to land a fish humanely and to handle it safely. There are several different kinds of nets and different kinds of sizes. This size is the kind that is most commonly used by wading fishermen; this and slightly larger. You will notice that the mesh in the bag is very fine mesh, and this is good because the fish’s gill and other body parts won’t protrude through this mesh and get hurt. The net also can be attached by means of a magnet, so that you can wear it either off your shoulder or around your belt and pull it out and make use of it quite conveniently and easily and then put it back. This net, which is more of a boat net, has the same fine mesh and has a different attachment system. The ring is attached with a little squeezed device and you can take it out like this. With a big nut like this, I really like to have a rubber band to hold the nut against the shaft so that it won’t get in the way and get caught on things, either in the boat or while you are walking through the forest getting to the water. One thing about this mesh: even though it protects fish beautifully is that it catches fish hooks, and if you catch a fish hook that is in a trout’s mouth, it is very difficult to unhook the fish and the fly simultaneously. So a relative new design which is really excellent is this rubber bag mesh. A hook will go into this mesh and come right out without any difficulty whatsoever. There it is in the mesh right now, and now its not. You would take 5 or 10 minutes in some cases to release that if it were a mesh net. These nets attach wonderfully the same way with the little clip Now imagine this relief as a trout. So all you need to do is bring it head fist in the net, get the net in the water. Once the head is in the net, raise it very gently and you’ve got your fish. If this were a trout, and this were the tail out here and I tried to catch the fish this way, the trout would feel the net in its tail, it’s headed that way and it would just scoot away. So always bring the fish to you into the net head first, that way it will swim if anywhere right into the net. "