sturgeon snare malfunction

Last week I made a snare per EK's directions and put it away, today I took it out and played with it a bit and it quit working, the cable would slide easily in both directions.

When I took it apart I found that one of the balls in the tensioner had fallen out of the tensioner and was in the pvc pipe.  I was able to get the ball back in place and it seems OK now.  It seems that as long as I pull up on the tensioner just enough to release the cable it's OK, but I think if I pull up on the release all the way the ball will fall out again.  Seems like a problem waiting to happen again, I wouldn't think I'd have to be that careful with the thing.

Am I doing something wrong? Did I find a bad tensioner? The cable I used was plastic coated with a 3/16 OD.

Has anyone else had a problem like this?

dale

Sounds like you got a bad tensioner.

Can you say "hecho en China"   

Thanks, it was the cheapest I've seen quoted on the board, $3.49.  And it felt cheap, but when  I couldn't pull it apart or otherwise get it to slip by force of hand, I figured it would be OK, of course then there's that falling apart thing.

I'll look for one that's a bit more robust,  

BTW I got mine at ACE, $3.49, just in case someone else is shopping around.