Here's some of the nets we've made, and some of our customers with their catches.
Send us your favorite photo using your net and we'll put it up here as well. You can be almost famous too!
What does a net maker give his new bride? Along with a new fly rod, my wife got this net to celebrate our April 2006 vows taken right here on the banks of the Big Blackfoot..
Inspired by the bald eagles that cruise our Rocky Mountain rivers, this custom butt carving not only looks cool but fits the hand nicely.
Our clients never want for imagination when designing their nets. Here's a flyfishing guitarist's dream -- trout net on one end, guitar butt on the other..
This has to be the only net in the world with a Grateful Dead button in the handle. And it's also gotta be the only one with genuine Mandarin garnets for fish eyes in the carving.
Burled woods like our recently arrived Afzalia burl make for some radical looking carvings on handles.
Here's two new ideas to think about for your net's handle. The net on the left (with the Old English "A") uses the rough outer edge of a burl to form the throat of the net, giving it a beautiful, rugged, natural look. The net on the right uses a full length diagonal slash of contrasting woods (here it's yellowheart and chakte kok running through canarywood), giving a bold and handsome look to the handle.
And here's one of the nets from the above picture, gently bringing a very hefty brownie under control. Nice fish, Dwight Atkinson!
Here's the record for the most pieces of wood in a net -- 150! An inlay of yellowheart, purpleheart, redheart and cocobolo gives a 3-dimensional look to the handle.
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The perfect fishing experience -- a Jenkins bamboo rod, a Joe Saricione reel, a BBN Spring Creek net, resting on fossilized Montana mudstone on the banks of the Big Blackfoot. This net, made with 24 pieces of wood from too long a list of species to list here, now lives on the Solitude Ranch near Garrison, Montana.
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Here's a net using a very slick combination of woods arranged parallel in the handle. As you can see here, a little imagination in your wood selection can make a wopping difference. And there's little or no additional charge for making these custom "tweeks".
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This net belongs to -- you guessed it -- a Texas game warden. His fishing buddy ordered it as a gift and also ordered a matching one (sans badge) for himself.
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Here's one of the prettiest combinations of wood we've seen yet -- a chakte kok butt section and thuya burl for the handle shaft. The hoop of this net uses dark, heavily figured Brazilian kingwood. The result was stunning. You may see this on the Frying Pan or other nearby streams in Colorado.
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What do you get two sons and a daughter, all fishermen, for Christmas? How about a matched set of Big Blackfoot Nets like this wonderful dad did.
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This gem has a Cocobolo See-Thru Flare butt with an inlaid oversized Elkhair Caddis. The Float Tube-length handle has a Pau Amarello separator, a gorgeous hunk of Kingwood in the shaft and a laminated wedge throat. The hoop (below) is done with Lacewood outer and Bloodwood inner laminates.
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This incredible look comes from Lacewood for an outer laminate, with Bloodwood on the inside. It's on the net pictured above in the grass.
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Chris Jacobsen (Hartford, CT) and the first fish caught with his Trout Long Elliptical BBN net -- a ten pound silver on the Talachulitna River, Alaska. We didn't design this net with salmon in mind, but Chris said the scrappy beast fit in it with room to spare.
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Jerry O'Connell caught this 25 1/2" brown in a spring creek in Ovando, MT using a size 22 Griffith's Gnat and a Spring Creek Elliptical BBN net.
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This 6 1/2 lb. rainbow porker came out of Duck Lake on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation just east of Glacier National Park. Amaziingly, this was the "small" fish in a pod of truly enormous 'bows that cruised by on the flats that afternoon.
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A September day trip to the Elk River in southeastern British Columbia yielded bunches of fat cutthroats, including this sweet girl taken on a hopper.
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This beautiful 19" cutthroat-rainbow hybrid came out of (and immediately went back into) "The Office" hole in late February. The Big Blackfoot is usually frozen over by then, but occasional mild weather can make for great mid-winter fishing.
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The Annual BBN Bob Marshall Wilderness Field Test
We conduct our Annual Field Test (a-k-a Tax Deductible Float Trip) in early July, taking four BBN nets attached to four friends into Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness to float the entire length of the South Fork of the Flathead River. The fishing is always great, the weather beautiful, and the water consistently perfect.
In the process of giving our nets a workout, we discovered the outer limits of one of our models. I personally tried to net Ron Dahle's 27" bull trout with a standard Elliptical BBN net, and the net was too small. I've previously netted 25" fish with it, so we now have conclusive evidence that, should you plan on catching fish beyond 25", either get the Long Elliptical hoop option, or do as I did and learn (quickly) how to hold your camera in your teeth while netting the fish's head, grabbing its tail with your free hand and then dragging the whole mess onto the beach. Ron can be seen here gleefully showing off the results.
How beautiful is this place? You be the judge...
Chris Jacobsen onto a cutthroat on the upper South Fork.
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Canyons abounding with gin-clear water is the norm.
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This hole anywhere else would have a name and a book written about it. Here it's just another turn in the river.
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Forty feet deep and you can see every pebble.
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If you'd like to learn more about the "Bob" or see more pictures, email me at joconnell@blackfoot.net
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