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, we can offer 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. Each refurbished racket averages 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 have been hitting up garage sales and dumpster diving in an effort to up-cycle old rackets and reduce plastic in the local landfill. If you already have an old tennis racket you would like to convert, we do offer our custom netting as a DIY kit on our shop. The kit includes netting, twine, and the needle required to string up a RiverRat repurposed racket net.
Please email us at urbananglersusa@gmail.com if you have specific color requests. Since these are random refurbished rackets, we may not be able to accommodate. If you order one without any specific request, a random racket will be netted and sent out. It will be a quality refurbished racket, but color will be an added surprise!
We don’t always find full sized trash, so we also offer junior sized tennis racket nets as “CreekRats.” These junior sized rackets feature the same size head/basket as an adult sized tennis racket, but with shorter handles. Racketball rackets feature a slightly different head shape, but they hold the same size netting. CreekRats are perfect starter nets for kids, or for fishing smaller water, but can still handle the same size fish as our RiverRats. We sew in the exact same size netting for all models. Depending on how trashed out the handle wraps are, we either stick with the original hi-grip racket tape, or will re-wrap them with high strength paracord.