I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a little suspicious of little plastic gizmos that look like they came from a late-night venture on some home shopping network. But sometimes you run on to a very simple idea that you wish you had invented yourself.
Here’s one. It’s not expensive, and it’ll pay for itself in no time through reclaimed flies – yours or someone else’s. It’s called Catch-A-Lure, and it was invented by Dave Olexson, a lifelong angler from eastern Pennsylvania. I talked with Dave recently about this nifty piece of simple technology.
So, what does Catch-A-Lure do? It attaches harmlessly to the tip of your fly rod to cut tippet or leader and retrieve flies entangled in nearby trees and bushes. The company make four options, but for fly fishers, it recommends Fly Fishing Catch-A-Lure. It fits rods in weights 2 to 10. It works great for almost all flies. For really large streamers and musky flies, the company recommends the Conventional Catch-A-Lure.
Is it hard to use? No, it’s really simple. You just attach it to your rod tip and a razor within the V-Cutter lances the tippet while the magnets hold your fly for retrieval. You don’t have to re-rig your rod to use. The company has produced many videos to show you how on Youtube.
Will Catch -A-Lure harm the fly rod? Neither retrieval tool will in any way harm your rod. The unique design of this product puts almost no pressure on the rod blank or tip-top. It is made to cut leader and tippet, quickly and easily.