I purchase 2 of these fishing lines, and my kids where so exicited to get them, but within the 1st day they where both broken and they never even used them. Would not recommened to purchase.

My wife found it on sale for $[...] -- which, in retrospect, should have been a clue. It took about five casts for a three year old who loves fishing to see that this is a sorry piece of junk. This is a great way to thoroughly disappoint a child.

I have five children, from three to twenty-three, and they all love to go fishing. We fish in ponds, canals, and from our boat - for everything from grouper to bass. Fishing is a great way to spend some quality time with your kids, but don't waste your money on this thing.

The problems with this are legion. It will definitely launch the "safety bobber" a respectable distance, but you must tie your hook directly to the six pound test line (no way to use any type leader), you are limited to using one split shot weight, and you must pack the hook, weight and bait inside the safety bobber. Even using just a small piece of shrimp, we found that it wouldn't usually deploy properly which leaves the child "fishing" with his bait stuck inside the plastic float.

Stay away from weeds, stumps or anything else that could cause a snag -- in other words, all the good places that fish hang out where you would normally try to get bait to. If you get hung up, you have to replace the entire contraption (at about [...] each) which will take some time, especially if you break the line above that little "line stop" that the entire system depends upon.

If you do manage to hook a fish with this thing (which is probably a rare event), it better be a very small fish. You have no way to "play" a fish with this toy bazooka, and six pound test line won't let you force the fish out of weeds and such, so a fish of any size would be likely to tangle you up.

Note that they tell you this is not for young children. The fact is, this is a child's toy, that only a young child will be interested in, but it is not safe for them. They must have the age warning because it would be easy to seriously hurt someone if you shot them in the face with this.

[...]

My three year old was completely taken by the commercials to the point that we had to let him try it. We took him out on the boat to a place where he could "cast" without worry about getting tangled up (and we could simply go retrieve it if he did). I literally had a boat load of children (most of mine, and some of their friends), and it pained me to see the little guy so disappointed, but sometimes you must let them see and do for themselves.

I remember his PR fiasco when Roland Martin declined the Make-A-Wish Foundation's request to take a terminally ill child fishing, so I don't know why I would expect more from him than to lend his name to this. How do you target children, and parents who don't know better.

What kind of person disappoints children for a living?

Bill E. Branscum
Naples, Florida
www.MrMoms.org

I also bought this for my son and it broke within the first 3 hours of using it. It was his first time fishing and he was excited. He launched it and it seemed to be fine but it wouldn't reel back in. Finally after 15 minutes of trying to reeling it back it, we launched it again and it didn't seem to cast out far enough so we tried reeling it back in and it just stopped. Wasting over 1hr on trying to fix the problem, we finally got fed up and just packed up our gear and left. My son was so upset, he cried the whole time wanting to fish. Thanx FOGO for making kids cry and making the parents look idiots. We'll buy a real fishing rod.

I saw a couple of little kids with these while I was fishing with my two kids. Of course, my kids thought they looked cool (they saw them on TV) and asked if they could have them. That was until they saw them in action. They launched a pathetic 15 feet maximum. Seemed like they were too difficult for the kids to "pump". For the $30 each they cost, I bought two Shakespeare Spincasting combos that came with hooks, lures, etc. My kids caught a dozen or more Sunnies each. The kids with these rocket rods didn't even get a bite. They were bored after about 20 minutes and left.

My child had a little bit of fun with this fishing rod but it didn't last long. Has plastic gears and if the line gets snagged and breaks it might get tangled up inside and no way to get in it to untangle it. The bobbers are hard to find so order extras for yours. Overall is a great concept but not really made heavy duty for kid play.