If anyone who stumbles across this blog likes to fish then this post is for you. The topic is stringers. I have seen three types of stringers on the market. The first is the rope kind. It’s convenient, inexpensive and good for bass and that sort of fish. A pike, however, can chew through that rope in a few minutes and be gone. The second is a metal chain with a number of clips hanging off it. This may or may not be inexpensive. The stronger ones are fairly costly. The cheaper ones can and will break. However, if a large fish thrashes about, I’ve seen it pop the clip and depart - not fun. The third kind is a wire with a long metal point at one end and a loop with a ring in it at the other. It is strong, inexpensive and reliable and this is the kind I use; however, I haven’t seen them in the stores in some time so I don’t know if they’re still making them. The downside is that the wire holds its shape so you probably have a tangle of wore that you’re trying to straighten out in one hand while holding a fish in the other. This can be difficult; nevertheless, this stringer works very well and I still like it. That said, I wanted a backup stringer in case of accident and so I made one myself.
I used roughly 15′ of clothesline, 2 - 3′ of 20 ga steel wire (available at Canadian Tire and probably Home Depot), 2 - 3′ of 20lb braid fishing line (I would have preferred 40lb or higher but 20 was all I had and a small bit of duct tape (optional).
Cutting clothesline is not easy. That stuff is tough. I measured off a goodly amount and placed it on a steel vice. Then I positioned a chisel in place and hit it wilt a hammer. Going through the plastic was easy of course but the metal took quite a few whacks before it was cut. But it did cut and unless you’ve got some really huge and strong wire cutters this is probably about the easiest way to do it.
Then I bent it back on itself forming a loop at one end. The loop I put in my vice so that as the vice closed, it squashed the loop. Once the vice was tight. I took the fishing line and wrapped it around the two pieces of line thereby preventing the loop from opening. First I formed a loop with the fishing line, then I wrapped it around and around until there was a long stretch of line. Then I passed the end back through the loop and pulled the other end to tighten the whole thing. I had some line left over and rather than cut it, I just tied the two ends together to make it extra secure.
Next I took the wire and wrapped it around and around the clothesline directly over the fishing line. I made this wrap as tight as possible. When the wire was coming to the end, I worked it back so that the two ends were adjacent to one another and I wound them around one another first with my fingers and then with a pair of pliers so they were really tight. Next I flattened this against the clothes line with pliers. The join was good but there was the possibility of scratching myself on the wire ends so I wrapped a bit of duct tape around it not to hold anything but just so that I’d have a smooth surface. Then I removed it from the vice and the loop was slightly flattened which will make it easier to store.
To use I’ll insert the free end through the gills, out the mouth and through the loop. Then the fish can go into the water and I’ll tie the free end to the cross board in my canoe. An advantage of this type of stringer - outside of the fact that it will save money - is that when taken from storage it won’t kink but will immediately spring into something close to straight that will be easier to work with.
