Fishing rod broke during first use by a (9) year old who fish's three to four times a week. She was under adult supervision and was not abusive. This product is very flimsy. Not worth the money paid.FOGO Generation II Rocket Fishing Rod

Looks good on tv, but in reality it was a waste of money. The product is much to heavy for my 6.5 year old child (roughly twice the weight of a standard rod and reel). It is difficult if not impossible for her to push the safety button and then the trigger. Often the trigger will not deploy. After you reel it in you have to spend time to reposition the expandable rod portion over the bobber before you shoot it again. Additionally the reel is fairly shotty construction and isn't secure in the housing.
After trying it in the backyard and then the lake--it ended up being useless junk. I broke out the standard rod and reel and within 15 minutes she was casting like a pro.
Avoid my mistake--it doesn't work like the commercial and there were no smiling faces on these users.

Pretty cool for kids to try out, but a little difficult for 6-7 yr olds to operate on their own. My son had a fishing birthday party and nobody stuck with this rod for very long. They all opted to go back to the simpler regular rod. That includes my son, who asked for this to be his gift for weeks beforehand. It's a little involved.

I really wish I had researched this product prior to purchasing - because then I wouldn't have bought it. And then I wouldn't have a bloody finger (more on that later.)

I came across the Amazon page only because I was searching for some sort of information on the product after it broke. The FOGO sports website only has information about the original RocketLauncher, not the II. That on its own is a bit "fishy" since most company websites would support their latest product. Even so, I tried looking at their FAQ (which produced a computer error) and "instruction manual" which was just a PDF of the original manual (hosted on a different server.) Clearly, the website is not maintained, nor is there any customer service to speak of.

Google searches for this product turn up ordering pages, not customer service pages -- and then this Amazon page, which unfortunately echoed the experience we had.

In our case, the "telescoping" function locked. The instruction manual troubleshooting reads 'if the telescoping APPEARS to be locked' and then says 'gently twist...' as if to imply that the telescoping could never be locked and that the solution is easy. I finally got the bottom portion of the telescoping to retract - but in so doing, shaved a piece of skin off my index finger. We finally had it set up to cast! It went out a couple feet and the telescoping locked again. It was at that point I sought out additional information in case there was another way I could unlock it.

It is going back to the store tomorrow -- what a shame, since my son was so enthusiastic about going fishing, and is instead crushed. I'm just relieved I'm the one with the hurt finger, not him.

This product says it's for 8 year olds & up, but it was very cumbersome & difficult to use. Pressing the safety button & reel cover simultaneously was tricky, especially for small hands. I'd give it 0 stars, except for the excitement of (finally) getting the bobber to shoot out. After that, the thrill was over - no fish for the Rocket, even though kids with traditional rods were catching fish left & right.