One of the unfortunate realities of fishing is you break-off and lose fishing line and flies/lures/hooks, and those monofilament remnants and hooks can cause problems for birds and animals. When you break-off, it is good to try and retrieve what you can. And while out fishing, it is good to be on the lookout for wads of discarded monofilament and pick them up—just be careful, as there can be a hook at the other end, and you don’t want to hook yourself! Fishing line is especially hazardous to birds, who sometimes pick it up to line their nest, and mono caught in trees is especially dangerous to birds who get trapped in it and die. To help encourage others to pick up monofilament, please take a photo of your “find” and post it to our Facebook Group Page. If you’re not into Facebook, you can email me the photo (conservation@bvff.com) and we will post it for you.

George Butts is leading a new project to build and distribute mono-collector tubes to local area lakes and fishermen access points. The current design of mono-collectors has several issues, including birds building nests inside and getting trapped and the public thinking they are “trash collectors”. We are investigating new designs to help alleviate these problems and plan to submit for an Idaho Fish and Game Community Challenge Grant next Spring to fund building and servicing new mono collectors.