The Great Lakes is hockey country. Many people from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the other Great Lakes states love their hockey as much as other sports fans love their “ball sports.” Many sports fans aren’t shy about displaying their favorite teams logos. I wear my Chicago Bears sweatshirts a lot - even in Wisconsin! My best fishing friend has Iowa Hawkeyes boat bumpers and seat covers for his boat. I’ve seen plenty of anglers wearing their Chicago Blackhawks coats while fishing for salmon on Lake Michigan and Detroit Redwings bling while on the Detroit River.
This isn’t review about “fan”-atics and their idiosyncrasies. It’s about landing nets, and there is a connection.
I’m always on the lookout for clever ways to repair or repurpose broken or well-used items rather than just tossing them away. Add these two things together and no wonder I was attracted to the small booth at a recent ICAST show called Broken Twig Landing Nets. They might call themselves “broken twig” but the twigs are actually broken or retired handles from hockey sticks.
One of the attributes of a good landing net is a light, strong handle. Most nets rely on aluminum, wood or fiberglass. One of the attributes of a good hockey stick handle is similar. It also has to be light and strong.
According to Chris LeMessurier, a hockey player, coach and owner/operator of Broken Twig Nets, the carbon fiber handles on modern hockey sticks are light, strong and a stick will last the average player the whole season and probably the following season. But when you move up to the collegiate level and more so to the NHL a good stick’s lifespan can be measured in days. Simply put, these hockey guys go through a lot of sticks like I go through trolling flies. I don’t know where all the tinsel on my used and abused flies end up but when defenseman breaks a stick, it heads for the trash heap and eventually to a landfill.
These days, however, some of these dead sticks head for Broken Twig Landing Nets, where Chris and family repurpose the cast offs as handles for landing nets and gaffs. How clever, especially for hockey fans who switch to fishing in the off-season.
Broken Twig nets are available at select dealers in Michigan and elsewhere or at their website: www.brokentwiglandingnets.com. Select from a variety of “twig” lengths and hoop sizes. The net I “test-scooped” was their largest size with 40-inch handle and a 21” X 18” hoop with a 20-inch deep rubber basket. Other, smaller sizes go all the way down to small bait scooper nets. Handles are available from a good number of NHL and college teams. The one I used was a recycled stick used by a former Red Wings’ player Riley Sheahan. You can pick a stick/net from your favorite team, but not a specific player.