Exquisite Landing Nets

The Fisknat net, made by Bob and Shannan Nelson, Tacoma, Washington USA

Thanks to Google Translate, small stream fanatics like myself, Tom Sutcliffe, Stephen Boshoff and Mario Geldenhuys have been able to access the lives, thoughts and equipment of the nation that American author, Dave Hughes, considers provides the most gifted of all anglers who love and cherish Lilliput waters - the Japanese.

The Ishida net - Japanese

The Japanese fly fishing websites have been a revelation and their owners and authors combine a reverence for small streams with an unparalleled sense of the aesthetic when it comes to crafting equipment for the fly fisher. Just have a look at the Ishida net in the picture above.

The J net

What has been a revelation to me has been the range of utterly exquisite landing nets made by Japanese companies.

What led me to this discovery was the photographs of Kiichi Onair

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiichi_onair/page2/

One of the photographs showed a landing net with bamboo inlays.

You can see an example here:

http://www.ff-pureland.com/142_796.html

Here are a few of the sites that I found thereafter.

http://silkywood.com/

http://www15.plala.or.jp/parashutar/craft2007.html

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/kamui/d/index.html

http://www.rinsui.jp/net/index.htm

http://factoryharu.sakura.ne.jp/net.html

The J net

The Kiichi Onair net above, the Maekawa net below