Say the average spinning reel holds about 175 yards of line. And over the course of a customary early spring day, there are roughly 1,000 fishermen wading in and out the Maumee River, casting those swift, rocky waters in pursuit of Lake Erie walleyes making their annual spawning run.

Snags are common along the river’s irregular bottom, which is often strewn with sunken debris washed down with the high water this time each year. Lines snap, reels become birds’ nests of backlash and twisted monofilament, and the landscape is littered here and there with discarded fishing line — miles and miles of it.

But this spring, Maumee River fishermen will have a multitude of proper places to put that unwanted line, thanks to the expansion of a program that Partners for Clean Streams has brought right to the water’s edge.

At some 16 of the busiest locations along the waterway, anglers will find these long, round tubes with curved tops that look somewhat like the periscope on a submarine, only these devices are not searching for enemy watercraft — they are here to collect that wayward fishing line.

Stuff those lengths of snagged, frayed, weathered or stripped line into these PVC pipes and you will keep that fishing line out of the environment, and send it on the route to being repurposed.

“There is a very high traffic of fishermen along the water at this time of year, and there has been a problem with lots of discarded fishing line ending up in the river,” said Jessica Batanian, the outreach specialist with the Perrysburg based conservation group. “Some of them just don’t know what to do with that old line, so these bins offer a place for that line to be recycled or repurposed.”

Batanian said that in the environment, some monofilament fishing lines will take hundreds of years to decompose, and therefore strands of discarded line present a long-term threat to waterfowl, fish and other wildlife that frequent the river.

“These sections of line act like an invisible snare, and when these creatures get entangled in old fishing line, it can often lead to death,” she said.

The parks along the waterway are supporting the fishing line recycling project, and property owners, volunteers, and organizations are working together to help maintain the program in the busiest fishing areas. Batanian said Partners for Clean Streams is seeking additional groups or individuals to adopt a fishing line recycling bin, track its use and collect the line for recycling.

“This is a program that is great for groups or organizations looking for service projects, and for those who deeply care about our waterways,” she said, adding that more formal sponsorships of the fishing line recycling sites is also an option, with a company or organization’s name and logo placed on the signage next to the bin.

Once collected, the old fishing line is handed over to Bass Pro Shops in Rossford, and then sent to fishing tackle giant Berkley in Iowa. Berkley, one of the first companies to develop monofilament fishing line, is also a leader in recycling it.

Berkley, which also sells fishing rods, baits, tackle, and thousands of fishing-related products, has recycled more than nine million miles of fishing line over the past 25 years.

“At the start, we just didn’t want to send the old line to landfills to get tangle up with birds and other things,” said Jim Martin of the Berkley Conservation Institute. “We told folks to send it to us, and we’ll turn that line into park benches and other things, and keep it out of the landfills.”

That recycling effort has expanded exponentially and Berkley now works with numerous cities and counties, as well as the U.S. Forest Service and many sporting goods dealers — all seeking to put that old line back to use.

“We will work with anybody that wants to send us their monofilament fishing line and we’ll recycle it,” Martin said. “Let’s keep it out of the environment.”

Some of that old fishing line gets turned into an artificial, underwater habitat structures called Berkley Fish-Hab. When installed in lakes, ponds and reservoirs, and especially under docks and piers, these gridlike structures attract small fish and encourage plant growth, which provides the natural cover essential to the growth of a healthy fish population. The fish habitat structures are made from recycled monofilament fishing line and plastic line spools, as well as other post-consumer materials such as milk cartons and soft drink bottles.

For more information on the Partners for Clean Streams fishing line recycling efforts along the Maumee River, contact the organization at the PartnersforCleanStreams.org website or at 419-874-0727.

Contact Blade outdoors editor Matt Markey at: mmarkey@theblade.com or 419-724-6068.

First Published March 22, 2016, 4:21 a.m.