A vital part of our urban fishing adventures is river clean-up. We were always finding random sporting equipment in the river. Basketballs, baseballs, baseball bats, volleyballs, soccer balls, etc. You name it, we have found it. Our buddy Nick even found a bowling ball with “Nick” engraved on the ball. It was creepy.
We were trying to figure out a way to donate or recycle what we were finding when we came up with the idea to repurpose old tennis rackets as Urban Anglers USA “River Rat” fishing nets. These “River Rats” are legit tennis rackets re-threaded to hold quality rubber netting. The fiberglass frames are normally only found in high price fishing nets, but by using old equipment that would normally end up as trash, you get superior strength and quality at a much lower price. The custom netting is 11″ deep and perfect for landing bass and trout. It is also capable of wedging a big carp in there. The average refurbished racket is 28″ in total length.
This project started with just the rackets we were finding in the river, but as the RiverRats have become more popular, we hit up garage sales and went dumpster diving in an effort to up-cycle old rackets and reduce plastic in the local landfill. Now that we’ve converted almost 1,000 rackets we want to provide you with our best tips, tricks, and pointers on best practices to build your own RiverRat Recycled RacketNet.
HOW-TO SUPPLIES NEEDED:
Netting options:
• 14×11 Clear Netting or
• 14×11 Black Netting or
• 12.5″ Clear or Black Netting and
• Twine
• Needles
• Epoxy
Keys to a RiverRat:
Our recommended netting has 15 eyelets. Center one eyelet in the top Center,and run 7 down each side.
• Each eyelet should ALWAYS Haveboth sides sewn into the racket
• Each racket is slightly different, but our netting is sized to fit most(DOES NOT FIT OLD WOODEN RACKETS) Skip grommets as necessary and let the feel of the netting determine the spacing. Most rackets will skip 1 grommet in-between each eyelet
• Try to keep track of the 7th eyeletto make sure you can get back intothe “middle” of the frame. If you cant, you just need to tie offa few more knots to restart in the middle and once you start up the other side.
• Depending on the individual racket, you may need to use a pliers to pull the needle through the grommets
Adding an anchor bolt:
Most handles are hollow and need to be filled with the epoxy listed above before inserting an anchor bolt. Drill into the base of the handle to determine if its hollow. Some rackets have a wood base and don’t need the epoxy. You will be able to tell if any sawdust comes out with the drill bit. Our recommended epoxy has a thin tip to insert into the small hole you have drilled. Once epoxy is pushed into the handle, insert the bolt and let the net hang vertically for a day to dry and harden.
