{"id":731,"date":"2006-02-21T18:34:43","date_gmt":"2006-02-21T18:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2006\/02\/21\/article_stripping_baskets_on_a\/"},"modified":"2006-02-21T18:34:43","modified_gmt":"2006-02-21T18:34:43","slug":"article_stripping_baskets_on_a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2006\/02\/21\/article_stripping_baskets_on_a\/","title":{"rendered":"Article: Stripping Baskets on a Trout Stream?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\n
Stripping Baskets
\non a Trout Stream?<\/font><\/strong>
\nby Zach Matthews
\nFirst Published October 1, 2003 | General Fly Fishing<\/font><\/em><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n

“How’s the streamer fishing?”
\nthe well-accoutred young angler asked as I waded out of the river. <\/p>\n

“Terrible,” I responded, noting that he was
\noblivious to the dry-and-dropper rig I was reeling in as I flipped my
\nbasket around to the rear and grabbed a limb to step onto the bank. “Why
\ndo you ask?”<\/p>\n

“The basket, man,” he glanced down and looked
\nslightly embarrassed for me. “Surf’s thataway,” he shot
\nover his shoulder as he and his two partners clumsily made their way upriver,
\nsnickering.<\/p>\n

\n

Surf’s thataway. Betcha need those long casts on this little
\nstream, eh buddy? Hey, man, caught any striper in that trout stream?<\/em>
\nI’ve heard them all. They’re referring, of course, to my
\nstripping basket, which I take with me whenever I fish, just about no
\nmatter what. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

My awakening to the stripping basket came in the standard way. I was
\nlearning to throw heads, getting ready for a big beach trip. I figured
\nI needed some extra distance and I’d seen a lot of cool magazine
\npictures of guys on the East Coast with tubs around their legs. I went
\ndown to Wal-Mart and constructed myself a cheap basket which worked
\ngreat (more on that later.) Then I took it out to the yard to try it
\nout.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n

\n

\nThe author with his basket in a Yellowstone spring creek.<\/font><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Many of you are familiar with the Nixon-era “[expletive deleted]”
\npoliteness. Suffice it to say that I would have worn that phrase out
\nrecounting my thoughts that afternoon. The basket was a miserable failure.
\nNo, I was the miserable failure for not knowing how to work this [expletive
\ndeleted] basket. My hand was hitting the box on every strip, I couldn’t
\nstrip in as much line as before, and I was just discovering the ongoing
\nheadache that is basket line management and the tangles you get when
\nyou disregard it. I used the basket for about thirty minutes, then threw
\nit in my car and washed my hands of it.<\/p>\n

Ironically, I ended up wading wet on the big beach trip and leaving
\nthe basket stowed. (Matter of fact, I’d argue that surf fishing
\nis one of the least effective uses of a stripping basket to this day.)
\nI didn’t need as much distance as I’d thought, and the basket
\nwould surely have swamped in the chest-deep water I was fishing. I caught
\nplenty of fish anyway and forgot about the basket for several months.<\/p>\n

And then one day it hit me. I was standing on my favorite shoal struggling
\nwith long-line nymphing and the annoying problem of having twenty feet
\nof doubled-up line getting pulled downriver by the current as I tried
\nto retie a fly. I’m sure you are familiar with this. No thank
\nyou, river, I’d rather unstring my rod myself. Whoops, excuse
\nme trout, just ignore that line, it’s out of bounds. Certainly
\ndon’t use it as cover in which to tangle me when I try to land
\nyou. It’s for your own good, you know. I had just begun to become
\na truly effective nymph fisher and the line was really getting me down.
\n‘You know what you need?’ I told myself. ‘You need
\na way to keep all this line off the water.’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n
\n


\nNote the home-made basket strapped to the rear.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n

\n
\n

The solution was pretty clear. I had made my stripping basket and never
\nreally used it. I remembered not liking the thing ’cause it got in the
\nway of my big hauls and long strips as I brought the saltwater flies
\nback. Maybe I could give it a try on the smaller water of the trout
\nstream.<\/p>\n

I did just that. Better yet, I quickly found out that most of my stripping
\nbasket woes were my own doing. On the trout stream you don’t make
\ntwelve inch return strips. You have time to ease the line into the basket,
\nand you don’t have one hundred feet out to tangle in the bottom.
\nIn short, trout fishing is the perfect way to learn to use a stripping
\nbasket. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

But it goes further than that. Within three
\nmonths I was totally at ease with the basket. My strips were limited to
\nthe short jerks they should have been all along. I learned to stack the
\nback of the line first and to distribute the line evenly in the bottom
\nof the basket. Where before I had let it pile up any way it wanted, I
\nlearned the crucial tip that loops which stick up are loops which tangle.
\nFinally I got some great advice about keeping water in the bottom to slick
\nthe line up and reduce tangles.<\/p>\n

Today I use the stripping basket almost every time I
\ngo fishing. I have become completely intolerant of having line around
\nmy feet. If I need the basket out of the way I can flip it around behind
\nme in a wink. When its time to strip I flip it back around to the front.
\nWhile casting it rests on my left hip, perfect for staying out of the
\nway and a good location for shooting line at the end of the cast. I never
\nhave line trouble when landing a fish. I am able to very effectively long
\nline nymph out to seventy feet because I can take it out and put it back
\ninto the basket if I want to fish closer or further away. When I fight
\na fish by hand, I pull the line into the basket instead of the water,
\nthen when the fish is to hand I can flip it all around behind me and out
\nof the way.<\/p>\n

Moreover, learning to use the basket effectively on a
\ntrout stream made it a breeze to apply to the salt. I learned good line
\nmanagement skills and smaller hand motions up front. The final realization
\ncame when I figured out how to do the two-handed strip. Basically you
\nJim Abbot your rod up under your casting arm pit, then begin to strip
\nhand over hand into the basket. Here’s the trick: move your line
\nhand straight forward and straight back like always, but move your rod
\nhand in a circle as you retrieve line. You can move your hands so fast
\nthey blur this way, without getting them into the way of each other. Above
\nall, you can flat pick up line. I can reel all one hundred feet of a line
\nback to my basket in four seconds seconds. <\/p>\n

Additional benefits not to be overlooked include learning
\nskills that make line management in a belly boat or pontoon a breeze.\n<\/p>\n

I recommend at least getting comfortable with a stripping
\nbasket to everyone. Build one for cheap (any minute now, I promise) and
\nthrow it in your car. The next time you come to the river only to realize
\nit’s up, or you’re going to be night fishing, or you need
\na long streamer cast, or you’re going to be doing a lot of switching
\nbetween close and long nymphing, you’ll have it to hand and ready
\nto go. Get comfortable with it on the trout stream and then use it to
\nbust some amazing casts on big water. Wow your friends and scare your
\nenemies. But don’t forget: stripping baskets ain’t just for
\nstreamers any more.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Build It Yourself<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

You don’t need to spend $40 on a basket, although most
\nretail baskets are very nice. For several years I was quite happy with
\nmy homemade basket. I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a Sterilite white
\nplastic sundries basket for about $1. I heated up a knife with a handle
\nflame and made belt loop incisions on all four corners, two incisions
\nto each corner. Then I ran some backpack strapping available at a local
\nclimbing store through the "belt loops," and attached a buckle.
\nFinally I epoxied in foam ear plugs to make fingers in the bottom. My
\ntotal cost was about $10.<\/p>\n

If you don’t like the foam fingers idea as much, there
\nare commercially available finger inserts (though this gets your basket
\ninto the retail price range.) Carter Simcoe, an Arkansas fisherman famous
\nfor his unusual pursuit of rough species on the fly, uses zip ties run
\nthrough two closely punched holes in the bottom of the basket to make
\nsome very effective fingers. He has mentioned epoxying the holes shut
\nfor smoothness, but I don’t know if he’ll ever get around to it.<\/p>\n

You may want your basket to float or you might want it
\nto drain. A lot depends on the conditions you fish in. The best thing
\nabout a homemade basket is you get what you want.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Ingredients:<\/font><\/p>\n

– One Sterlite or Rubbermaid basket from Wal-Mart or the equivalent,
\napproximately 12" x 16" x 9" deep.<\/p>\n

– One hot knife, heated by candle or lighter flame<\/p>\n

– 3" backpack strapping, available at climbing stores<\/p>\n

– One backpack buckle for 3" webbing, also at climbing stores<\/p>\n

– Zip ties or foam earplugs<\/p>\n

– Five minute epoxy<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Total Cost: About Ten Bucks<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

For more information on building your own
\nstripping basket, stripping basket technique, or the skills involved in
\ndistance casting and longline nymphing, visit The
\nItinerant Angler Bulletin Board<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stripping Baskets on a Trout Stream? by Zach Matthews First Published October 1, 2003 | General Fly Fishing “How’s the streamer fishing?” the well-accoutred young angler asked as I waded out of the river. “Terrible,” I responded, noting that he was oblivious to the dry-and-dropper rig I was reeling in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","column","onecol","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/files\/2013\/01\/stripping11.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}