Many of you are familiar with the Nixon-era “[expletive deleted]”
politeness. Suffice it to say that I would have worn that phrase out
recounting my thoughts that afternoon. The basket was a miserable failure.
No, I was the miserable failure for not knowing how to work this [expletive
deleted] basket. My hand was hitting the box on every strip, I couldn’t
strip in as much line as before, and I was just discovering the ongoing
headache that is basket line management and the tangles you get when
you disregard it. I used the basket for about thirty minutes, then threw
it in my car and washed my hands of it.
Ironically, I ended up wading wet on the big beach trip and leaving
the basket stowed. (Matter of fact, I’d argue that surf fishing
is one of the least effective uses of a stripping basket to this day.)
I didn’t need as much distance as I’d thought, and the basket
would surely have swamped in the chest-deep water I was fishing. I caught
plenty of fish anyway and forgot about the basket for several months.
And then one day it hit me. I was standing on my favorite shoal struggling
with long-line nymphing and the annoying problem of having twenty feet
of doubled-up line getting pulled downriver by the current as I tried
to retie a fly. I’m sure you are familiar with this. No thank
you, river, I’d rather unstring my rod myself. Whoops, excuse
me trout, just ignore that line, it’s out of bounds. Certainly
don’t use it as cover in which to tangle me when I try to land
you. It’s for your own good, you know. I had just begun to become
a truly effective nymph fisher and the line was really getting me down.
‘You know what you need?’ I told myself. ‘You need
a way to keep all this line off the water.’
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Note the home-made basket strapped to the rear.
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The solution was pretty clear. I had made my stripping basket and never
really used it. I remembered not liking the thing ’cause it got in the
way of my big hauls and long strips as I brought the saltwater flies
back. Maybe I could give it a try on the smaller water of the trout
stream.
I did just that. Better yet, I quickly found out that most of my stripping
basket woes were my own doing. On the trout stream you don’t make
twelve inch return strips. You have time to ease the line into the basket,
and you don’t have one hundred feet out to tangle in the bottom.
In short, trout fishing is the perfect way to learn to use a stripping
basket.
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But it goes further than that. Within three
months I was totally at ease with the basket. My strips were limited to
the short jerks they should have been all along. I learned to stack the
back of the line first and to distribute the line evenly in the bottom
of the basket. Where before I had let it pile up any way it wanted, I
learned the crucial tip that loops which stick up are loops which tangle.
Finally I got some great advice about keeping water in the bottom to slick
the line up and reduce tangles.
Today I use the stripping basket almost every time I
go fishing. I have become completely intolerant of having line around
my feet. If I need the basket out of the way I can flip it around behind
me in a wink. When its time to strip I flip it back around to the front.
While casting it rests on my left hip, perfect for staying out of the
way and a good location for shooting line at the end of the cast. I never
have line trouble when landing a fish. I am able to very effectively long
line nymph out to seventy feet because I can take it out and put it back
into the basket if I want to fish closer or further away. When I fight
a fish by hand, I pull the line into the basket instead of the water,
then when the fish is to hand I can flip it all around behind me and out
of the way.
Moreover, learning to use the basket effectively on a
trout stream made it a breeze to apply to the salt. I learned good line
management skills and smaller hand motions up front. The final realization
came when I figured out how to do the two-handed strip. Basically you
Jim Abbot your rod up under your casting arm pit, then begin to strip
hand over hand into the basket. Here’s the trick: move your line
hand straight forward and straight back like always, but move your rod
hand in a circle as you retrieve line. You can move your hands so fast
they blur this way, without getting them into the way of each other. Above
all, you can flat pick up line. I can reel all one hundred feet of a line
back to my basket in four seconds seconds.
Additional benefits not to be overlooked include learning
skills that make line management in a belly boat or pontoon a breeze.
I recommend at least getting comfortable with a stripping
basket to everyone. Build one for cheap (any minute now, I promise) and
throw it in your car. The next time you come to the river only to realize
it’s up, or you’re going to be night fishing, or you need
a long streamer cast, or you’re going to be doing a lot of switching
between close and long nymphing, you’ll have it to hand and ready
to go. Get comfortable with it on the trout stream and then use it to
bust some amazing casts on big water. Wow your friends and scare your
enemies. But don’t forget: stripping baskets ain’t just for
streamers any more.
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Build It Yourself
You don’t need to spend $40 on a basket, although most
retail baskets are very nice. For several years I was quite happy with
my homemade basket. I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a Sterilite white
plastic sundries basket for about $1. I heated up a knife with a handle
flame and made belt loop incisions on all four corners, two incisions
to each corner. Then I ran some backpack strapping available at a local
climbing store through the "belt loops," and attached a buckle.
Finally I epoxied in foam ear plugs to make fingers in the bottom. My
total cost was about $10.
If you don’t like the foam fingers idea as much, there
are commercially available finger inserts (though this gets your basket
into the retail price range.) Carter Simcoe, an Arkansas fisherman famous
for his unusual pursuit of rough species on the fly, uses zip ties run
through two closely punched holes in the bottom of the basket to make
some very effective fingers. He has mentioned epoxying the holes shut
for smoothness, but I don’t know if he’ll ever get around to it.
You may want your basket to float or you might want it
to drain. A lot depends on the conditions you fish in. The best thing
about a homemade basket is you get what you want.
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Ingredients:
– One Sterlite or Rubbermaid basket from Wal-Mart or the equivalent,
approximately 12" x 16" x 9" deep.
– One hot knife, heated by candle or lighter flame
– 3" backpack strapping, available at climbing stores
– One backpack buckle for 3" webbing, also at climbing stores
– Zip ties or foam earplugs
– Five minute epoxy
Total Cost: About Ten Bucks
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