Fishing Line That Keeps on Catching
By
A Mess of Old Fishing Line
In a recent post I discussed re-spooling all my reels with new line for the upcoming season. Today I came across a post on a favorite forum of mine discussing the need to responsibly and properly dispose of our OLD fishing line. The post included an image showing a dead osprey hanging below it’s nest due to being tangled in old fishing line. A very heart-breaking image to say the least.
The timing of the post I read could not have been any better. With the new fishing season rapidly arriving, anglers across the country will be taking care of their preparations for the 2011 season. One of these tasks includes replacing the old line on our reels. This old line, if not disposed of properly, finds it’s way into the landfills and garbage dumps. Since it pretty much lasts forever the old line can cause problems for wildlife that come in contact with it for a very long time.
I would like to encourage everyone to take the appropriate course of action in disposing of your old line so that you can be sure it was not YOUR old line that tangled a bird or animal. It really is something that only takes but a few extra seconds but is time well worth it.
So, what are the appropriate steps you may be asking?? Probably the very best option would be the recycling plan that Berkley Fishing has been sponsoring since 1990. I believe they have been the leaders in the discarded fishing line recycling since their programs inception. Here on Long Island, a lot of the local tackle shops have cardboard bins used to collect the old line that is then returned to Berkley to be re-used in the manufacture of other products. During your next visit to the tackle shop you bring your bag of old line and just drop it off in the collection bin.
I prefer to take the old line from the reel and wrap it around my hand and then cut the coils across the top and bottom with share scissors. This leaves the line in small lengths that will not be able to snare any wildlife.
Another option, although probably not the Greenest, would be burning it. I’ve tried this in the past and it is a pain in the neck, not to mention stinking to the high heaven. The stuff melts away to practically nothing but my thought here is that the effort is not really worth the results.
The bottom line here is that all of us anglers need to do SOMETHING to make sure our fishing lines are not continuing to “catch” long after we are finished with them.
If anyone has some other methods of disposing of their old line I would love to hear about them. Please take a moment and post a comment letting us all know. Our local birds and wildlife thank you
Tight Lines.........
Capt Paul Mandella
captpaul@maybetonightcharters.com
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