Playing with a "Fly-O"?

Ok,
Does anyone here have, or have ever played aorund with a Joan Wulff "Fly-O"? It's a little rod witha few yards of bright orange yarn rigged on it to practice casting indoors. It looks like a fun thing to play with, and also a neat way to teach the unititiated how to at least get some line in the air. Problem is that I have a bunch of friends who'd like to try, but not enough rods for all of them. If I pick one of these up, and let each friend borrow it for a week, would it be of any assistance at all? It just looks kinda cool to me and I'd like to try it out.

bwagner,

Leonard has one and has been teaching a 7 year old to fly cast, he might be able to answer some questions for you.

You'll find his profile and email address under the : Things Wanted section, post: Looking for a reel!

akalooker

Buy one...make the rest. Could use a long dowel rod or a piece of bamboo...

If the indoors part isn't importanbt, you can just run some yarn out through your fly rod and have the same thing. I do this occasionally as my back yard is too small for regular casting.

I've had one since they came out in the 70's. Can be a useful tool, but these days I use it mostly to entertain the cats. Right now it has a hookless deerhair bug with rubber legs on it. The cats just love chewing on it when they catch it!

The Fly-O is how I taught my wife to cast.

I still use it a lot to practice.

Would not be without it!!!

------------------
Ken

"The memory of a fisherman is more like fiction than journalism, that is, it doesn't ignore the facts, but it is not entirely bound by them, either."

John Gierach

I have one and used it to teach my 2 sons how to cast. All 3 of us use it during the winter to keep "in casting shape" and to entertain the cat.

Seriously, it's a good tool and will help your casting, it did mine.

I loop a furled leader onto the second guide down from the tip top guide of a (cheap) fly rod tip section. I don't loop it on the tip top because it tends to hinge when I cast it. I use it as a cat toy to go "cat fishing" for our family's cats. The love it when I cast out the leader and will attack it, but if I tie on a small hookless deerhair mouse I've made up specifically for them they really go nuts. One of the cats likes to bite down hard on the mouse and make runs, the other likes to jump at (or with) it. Of course, when they run with the mouse, it either ends up popping out of their mouth or the try to drag the rod out of my hands. But I've had this idea to put a small reel and handle on one of the rod tips I use so they can take out line and I can try to reel them back in. The cats really love it and it's good for them since they are indoor cats and don't otherwise get a lot of excercise.

Anyhow, I guess my point is that you could probably practice casting with a similar sort of set up.

Edit: Hmm, now that I've read the other posts I guess I'm not the only one to have come up with pretty much the same idea. . . great minds like alike I suppose! . . . Or was that fly-fishermen?

[This message has been edited by Bill Blake (edited 11 January 2006).]