On 03 Feb 2004 00:05:54 GMT, ojunk (George Adams) wrote:

From: "Kevin Gunther"

I fished with a Folstaff as did my fishing partner. Neither one of us could
get either one of them apart. Returned it and now use an old ski pole. The
Folstaffs were, in both cases, birthday presents.

I can be accurately described as "heavy set", and I have had no problem with
Folstaff. Simply keep the joints clean, apply a little parrafin from time to
time, and store the staff assembled and there should be no problem.

I used staff #1 for nearly 10 years and the elastic cord finally wore out. I
returned it to the manufacturer enclosing five bucks for return shipping, and
they sent me a replacement. I'm going on five years with that one without a
problem. Just requires a little maintenance.

But...As I inferred earlier...One time I waxed the ferrules on my trusty
Folstaff. Everything was hunky dory for weeks of fishing, until one day I
found myself in the Battenkill River at high tide with only a couple of inches
of freeboard and a staff that kept shaking itself apart in the torrent.

Not good at all. Imagine lifting the staff just enough to plant it a foot
further - as one does when inching along a stream - and have it separate every
fricken' time. And each time that happened the resulting Deep Water Two-Step
put me another couple of feet closer to a full swamping.

I was lucky to stay barely planted long enough to tie a bunch of knots in the
cord to make it tighter to hold the damned staff together to get me the F out
of the river...even while certain induhviduals had a good laugh at my
predicament! :-}

/daytripper (won't do *that* again!)