If ever there’s been a product worth its weight in gold, then the Chub Eazi Flow Flotation Safety Weigh Sling has to be it! To be honest, I’ve never been a massive fan of sacking fish on safety grounds, and much prefer to release the fish straight back at the time of capture. However, over recent years I’ve been sacking more fish when looking to move fish from one of our waters to another (with full permission to do so from the EA, I hasten to add!).
When we do have a permission in place to remove carp from a water by rod and line, syndicate members will be made aware of the sizes we’re looking to move and they’ll then sack up anything they have that fits the bill, call me, and I’ll go straight down to move it. We’ve used various sacks and systems over recent years, but many of the sacks are quite cumbersome and time consuming to use – and you always tend to find yourself endlessly rechecking everything you do to make sure it’s all safe. My life has become SO much easier since we started using the Chub Eazi Flow Flotation Safety Weigh Sling. We keep one stashed at the water for the members to use and they all love it, too – so much so that many have since purchased one for themselves!
In use, the system is basically a floating box that hangs down from the surface into the water like a huge vented hanging basket, giving the fish ample room to move about within the system and, crucially for me, the fish has no material directly up against its body (which has the potential to restrict oxygen flow through the gills) and, as such, fish can happily move around within the sling without getting stressed during retention.
Although it’s pushed as a short term retainer rather than a sack, one thing I’ve noticed since we’ve started using it is just how lively the fish are when we take them back out when compared to how they’ve been when retained in a sack, and so it’s been our first choice of retention ever since we started using it.
The sling rolls up nicely and if I roll it tightly, I can get it in the net pocket on my quiver, and at just 900g it won’t drag you down. The sling has two floating bars which run its entire length and there are two smaller brace bars which lock into position to keep the floating bars a fixed distance apart. There is top mounted a zip running end to end, with various clips to aid safety, and a quality drawcord.
The members using it on one of my syndicates at the moment all agree that the one thing it gives you over any traditional sack is extra piece of mind that not only is the fish ‘happy as Larry’, due to it having plenty of room to move about within the hanging basket, but also, should the unthinkable ever occur and the retainer breaks it’s mooring, it floats, so it could easily be located and recovered.
I just use the ‘standard’ size, but there is also a ‘large’ version available.
Highly recommended – Ten out of ten.
Julian Grattidge
June 2013
