Retractors and fishing. Many anglers have never heard of a little piece of equipment known as a retractor, but it's something that makes every fishing trip much better. A retractor is a small wheel that attaches to your belt, shirt, or fishing vest with a clip on it and this clip holds important fishing gear. Then that gear simply hangs from your body until it's needed. Then, when it's needed the piece of equipment is grabbed, pulled to where it's needed, used, and released. When the equipment is released, the retractor zips it right back up. It's great!



The single most popular piece of equipment to add to a retractor, is a pair of nail clippers. With easy access to a pair of nail clippers, they actually get used to snip fishing line, rather than biting the line. Your dentist will be very happy if you use nail clippers to snip your fishing line rather than biting it. For years, I used to bite my line, but now that I've been introduced to retractors, no more. Now I simply use the nail clippers that I attached to my retractor. Whenever I need to cut my line (which happens many times each fishing trip) I simply grab my nail clippers, pull them out, snip my line, and let go of them. The retractor then zips them right back.

Another lightweight item that I like to have hanging off of my fishing vest are my hemostats for hook removal. With my retractors, that's exactly what I do. I attach my hemostats to a retractor as well. Then I know right where they are when I need them. I used to hate having to try to remember which pocket I put my hemostats in. Not only that, but at least once a fishing season, I would use my hemostats to remove a hook, put them down as I released the fish, and then forget about them. Then I would have to replace my hemostats. With the help of a retractor, this is no longer an issue.

That, in a nutshell, is how retractors relate to fishing. Basically, retractors enable you to keep any lightweight fishing gear that is needed often, hanging from your body for easy access. As I eluded to earlier, for many years I didn't use retractors because I knew nothing about them. Now, I won't fish without a couple of them. The amount of time that's saved by employing retractors truly is amazing.