Best Fly Fishing Nets

A net is a fish-welfare item before it is a convenience. A fish held in the current in a knotless rubber or soft mesh bag can be unhooked and released in seconds with its slime coat intact; the same fish wrestled on gravel or held in knotted nylon loses the protective layer that keeps infection out.

The Wide-Mouth Hand Net is built for that job and for wading specifically. The numbers: 25.5 inches overall, 10.5 inches wide, a 16-inch hoop and a 9.5-inch bag on a 9-inch handle, in a lightweight composite frame with a knotless hook-resistant bag.

The short handle is deliberate and it is the thing people question. Wading with a long-handled net means catching it on every willow and every wading staff. A hand net rides on your back and comes off when the fish is already close, which is where you should be landing it anyway.

Nets for wading small water have a geometry problem. Make the hoop wide enough to scoop and it catches every branch on the walk in; make it narrow and people assume it is too small. The Emerger answers it by being long rather than wide — 18.8 inches of hoop length against 9.8 inches of width.

That is the right shape for the job, because a trout enters a net nose-first and lengthwise. You lead the fish in rather than scooping sideways, which is less stressful for the fish and much less likely to knock the hook out at the last second.

The bag is PVC-free TPU rubber mesh, which is the specification that matters most and the one buyers skip past. Rubber mesh does not strip a fish's slime coat, does not trap hooks the way knotted nylon does, and does not freeze into a solid lump in February. The frame is the same carbon-fiber-and-fiberglass blend as Fishpond's larger Nomads, and the whole thing floats.

Fishpond's Nomad nets are built from a carbon fiber and fiberglass composite, which makes them waterproof, UV stable and — the part that matters when you fumble one — buoyant. The Mid-Length is 37 inches long with a 13 by 18 inch head, a 12-inch bag and a total weight of about one pound with the rubber bag fitted.

That length is the whole decision. From a drift boat or raft you are reaching down and out, and 37 inches is the difference between netting the fish and watching it come off at the gunwale. Wading the same river, that length catches every branch you walk past.

If you are buying one net and you wade, buy a hand net. If you float, or you split your time, this is the upgrade.

Most of what you pay for in an expensive net is the frame — carbon fiber, a shaped handle, a finish that survives being dragged through brush. Almost none of what protects the fish is in the frame; it is in the bag.

The Frabill gets the bag right. Tangle-free rubberized micromesh does not abrade a trout's slime coat and does not snag the fly you are trying to remove, and the flat-bottomed design lets the fish lie supported rather than bent in a deep V. At an 11 by 15 inch hoop it handles ordinary stream trout comfortably.

What you give up is weight and refinement. It is bulkier on your back and the hardware is built to a price. If the choice is between this net and no net, this net wins easily — a fish landed in rubber mesh and released in ten seconds is in far better shape than one played to exhaustion and handled on gravel.