What to Keep Within Reach When It's Net-Grabbing Time

Up on the Great Lakes, fishermen use nets as long as 15 feet to bring salmon over the rails. For the past few years on Florida’s Big Bend, I’ve used the opposite: a short, extending Frabill that was easily hidden and took up little space in my boat. As a guide, I have an aversion to waving a big landing net, advertising to other boats that I’m catching fish. In many regions, that kind of behavior will attract other boats like seagulls to floating crackers.

Yet, I’ve recently switched to a bigger landing net. Why?

• 1) You have to be deadly accurate with a small net. A client may have the fish of a lifetime thrashing by the boat or diving under the hull, and poking at it with a small net could result in disaster. Like a big Spanish mackerel that tangles the spoon halfway inside the mesh, rips loose, and backs out of the net.
• 2) Related to that, we’re starting to see big flounder again on Florida’s Gulf Coast. I hooked a big one the other day and my rookie client easily scooped it up. Good thing, because it was our only decent fish that day. It was served in a restaurant hours later, where nearby tables stared with envy.
• 3) On another recent trip, our biggest trout of the day hit near the boat and the entire fight was within 12 feet of us. The hook pulled and flew straight up. As that ponderous trout thrashed on top of the water, I quickly scooped. Perfect timing: Jig in the air, but the trout thrashed in my half-submerged net.
• 4) Only the other day, I scooped up a 26-inch trout, and the excited, 12-year-old angler may very well be hooked on fishing for life. Pictures were quickly taken, and that lip-hooked, egg-laden “sow” trout swam away without harm.

So, yes, I’ve become a fan of bigger nets. My current favorite is an inexpensive, rubberized Shadow Tech with a 3-foot pole. Importantly, the mesh is bucket-shaped and could easily scoop up a 15-pound snook. After a day of use I’d left it in the car and worried about fish smell. Retrieved it and gave it a sniff, and there was no odor. A rubberized mesh doesn’t remove fish slime and that keeps released fish and my car happy.

A bigger net is also more easily noticed before I speed off to another spot, so I remember to stuff it in a rod holder. For further insurance, I sprayed a 6-inch band of fluorescent orange paint around the net’s handle, as a visual reminder to stow the net. In the past three years I’ve lost two smaller nets when, unnoticed, they crept over the transom and were lost. On one trip, we motored back upwind 200 yards for another trout drift, and found a floating Frabill. I thought: Wow, these nets are popular. Now I have two. But where’s mine? It was the same net.

Some days you really do need a net, like when trout just keep falling off the hook. My wife Amy almost lost her cool, after I left the net at home and she had three, consecutive 20-inch trout drop off the spoon when I grabbed the leader to lift them aboard. (Some days, the fish just nip at the lures, hit short and are barely hooked.) Later that day I worked a big Spanish mackerel to the boat, and gingerly lifted by the leader. That fish only had one hook of the spoon’s treble and when I lifted, it actually snapped off. Beating the water with my rod tip I muttered, rice and beans for dinner.

Net Tips

• If you don’t want to be noticed landing fish, go with a stealthy, telescoping small net.
• Guides and tournament anglers use a big landing net for good reason: They don’t want to lose quality fish.
• Rubberized nets are best for releasing fish; the mesh doesn’t cut the tail or rub off protective slime.
• For jetties, seawalls, and piers, you will need a long-handled net.
• For wading, a short-handled, floating net works well.
• If you dip up a 30- or 40-pound black drum, don’t try to pitchfork it into the boat; the aluminum arm will break every time. Point the handle straight up at the sky and lift.

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This article was featured in the October 2024 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe.

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