Premium Quality Landing Nets, Handcrafted by Lloyd D Hautajarvi
Refinishing Services Available
With a reasonable amount of care, the same as you might give to any of your favorite fishing equipment, one of my nets will give you many seasons of angling pleasure and still look good. If however you do damage the finish, I will offer to make your LDH net look good as new by refinishing it to its original lustre assuming that no physical damage has been done to the wood. I can also replace the netbag if that proves to be necessary. I know of no other netmaker offering this service. The one thing that I would ask is that I be allowed to do the refinishing work in the winter, after my fishing season is complete. Please contact me regarding the cost and for shipping instructions.
Burls Wanted
I am always on the lookout for highly figured hardwoods and burls. If you think that might be interested in something that you have access to, please contact me with the details. I could either pay cash for the item or we might be able to work a trade. I have very high grading standards for the woods that I will use in my nets so I can't use any material that shows only average figure, I need to have material that is of the highest quality.
What is a Burl?
Burls are very unusual yet very exciting (at least to confirmed woodaholics like myself) growths that are found on a very small percentage of trees. No one is quite sure as to what causes them but they do tend to form at a point on a tree trunk that has been damaged, whether by insects, frost, lightning or even a bullet from a hunters rifle. I have a White Ash burl that when sliced into slabs for my use revealed a bullet that the band saw mill had exposed. It was from that bullet that you could see the burl emanating. Burls occur on most species of trees but tend to be more common on certain species. The wood inside of a burl looks nothing like the figure that you will find within the trunk of the tree that the burl is cut from. The figure can be spectacular if cut properly and when used to make the handle of one of my nets I think you'll understand why I like to refer to burls as 'Gems of the Forest'. The burl at left is a small specimen from a White Birch tree in northern Minnesota. I am able to procure Black Ash burls locally along with White Birch, White Ash and to a lesser extent Cedar. I get my Maple, Walnut, Myrtlewood and Redwood burls from the West Coast.