Exactly. Why risk a crewmans hands or anything else if it can be avoided. Anyway it is not fishing in the way that the original poster was thinking of. I can understand the logic of avoiding having a long strop because I have found that the shorter the strop is, but long enough to allow for the load to up-end itself in flight, the better it flies. The old British Army 105mm howitzer with the spades deployed would cruise quite happily at 140 knots on a 6ft strop. Even faster if the hook became undone.