A couple months ago my uncle made a beautiful tamo, or Japanese fish landing net, for me. And during my recent visit, I noticed that he and my cousin made leather belt holsters for their landing nets, so I resolved to make one for mine, too.

Following their advice, I hit up the nearest Hobby Lobby (not actually that close to me… it is almost 45 minutes away) for a bag of leather remnants, a hole punch, and some waxed string. I’m not sure how Hobby Lobby does it, but they beat Amazon on their prices, at least for leather working tools and materials.

This afternoon I learned some of the basics of leather working and made a net holster of my own.

Laying out the remnants and figuring out the fit.

The net has this unique bend in the end that helps me hold on to it because it is made from a wild (muscadine) grape vine. That means the holster needs to be wider than the main stem of the handle because the bend needs to get all the way through the holster.

Super glueing the pieces and punching the stitching holes.

Saddle stitching.

Trimmed and oiled.

On the fishing belt:

One mistake I made: Not measuring the buckle of the belt and making my holster fit the main body of the belt. Squeezing the buckle through took me a good five minutes of effort.

This was my first foray into leather working. I’m sure I’ll make more things in the future now that I know the basics!