I’ve always wanted to make and experiment with bolas. I spent some time this weekend putting together a few. I especially wanted to try using different materials with varying handle designs. I read through some of the resources I had in my personal library and was disappointed to find that many of the descriptions for them were lacking detail. I did find some excellent information here at www.flight-toys.com. However, in all fairness to the to the other authors, there is not a lot of technical difficulty to them and the concept is relatively simple. I just enjoy having access to pictures or more detailed descriptions of actual artifacts or replicas for reference. So, for starters, I went with bare bones simple. I just cut a limb into four similar length segments, grooved them on one end, and fastened one weight to each end of two long pieces of 550 paracord. The cords were then connected in the middle to a wooden handle. The handle was unnecessary, but as I stated earlier, I wanted to experiment with different handle styles and wanted an excuse to try cutting a hole through a stick as described in the book Bushcraft by Mors Kochanski’s.

The next bola design was pretty simple. I just took an old t-shirt that was in the rag cupboard and cut off some strips to twist into cord. Then I cut some squares from the fabric and filled these with wet sand. I tied everything together and knotted the free end of the cords for a handle. I didn’t throw either style bola very much, but found this style of grip more comfortable and natural to use.

For the final style I decided to get a little more elaborate. I went with a weight incorporated into a monkey-fist knot. I chose to use marbles as my weight for aesthetic reasons because they are perfectly round and result in a prettier, more uniform looking knot. In reality, one would use a round river cobble instead. Although neat looking, this method was the most time consuming and used up a lot of cord. Also, the marbles were not heavy enough for use on anything larger than a song bird. I twisted the middle portions of the cord into a loop to form the handle. Speaking from my limited experience, I found this style of handle to be the least comfortable and least accurate to throw. Anyway, the time I spent throwing these things around was fun – especially when the weights wrap around your target. However, for having such a wide spread, I was very surprised at how often I missed my target. The good news is that in open country with nothing between you and your quarry, if your throw should falls short, you still have a chance at connecting after the rebound off the ground.

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