well let me start off its been ahwile since ive posted computer problems ..went and bought a new one......my better half manages a chain of hall-mark shops and she hired a lady not to long ago that moved up here from down south with her husband.....he loves to fish and hunt and asked if it would be alright to go salmon fishing with us one day.....so we took him and i meet him for the first time both arms are gone from a little below his elbows down .........and he really couldent fish that well with a basic rod and reel.. he made due sticking the butt of the rod below his belt line arm wrapped around the rod.... i know that cant be good on the back moving up and down that much....and i had em run the okuma with a bigger knob on the handle so he could somewhat grip it.........very hard time ........so my ??? is has someone ever built a rod for someone like this i need all the ideas i can get ..........and i know they dont have much money with him not able to work and him getting social security...so i cant get to crazy with the project as most will be out my pocket......experimenting ......any and all help would be appreciated thanks................

I recently ran into a someone with short limbs, admiring my rods he was very impressed with the split grips. He acknowledged problems with conventional equipment...and mentioned how comfortable the split inside his arm pit and the butt behind his shoulder blade, it provided a firmer grasp.

Both of his limbs are less than 12".

~Mark

Could you mount some type of a cup to a handle so his limb could slide in to turn the reel handle maybe making it easier?

You could even do the same thing with the rod. Mount a sleeve of sorts on the handle. In essence it would make the rod and extension of his arm.

I used to shoot competitvely and there was a lady who shot an over under. Her left hand had been amputated and she had a leather sleeve mounted to the foreend of the shotgun that she slid her arm into to maintain control and swing the gun.

ive thought about the cup deal to or maybe velcro... im trying to bring everything in like hows he going to cast .....he is not used to the great lakes steelhead and salmon down south he said he used a huge closed face reel because it was easy to use and cast.................but a spinning reel is going to be challenging.............

I ran into something similar after my cousin had a stroke. He lost use of his left arm was detrmined to go fishing again. I was referred to this website and it had a lot of good ideas for his situation. Your situation sounds a bit more challenging with both limbs missing but there are a lot of good ideas here. Does he have any type of prosthetics?

[store.accesstr.com]

The third link down on the previous page I posted contains muliple accessories that may work here is a link to that one

[store.accesstr.com]





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2007 04:41PM by Scott Youschak.

That Strong Arm product was exactly what I was thinking of. There was a post somewhere about ideas being stolen... Can I claim that .. nope too late, their website was up first. Dang it!

I can't find a picture of it but by the sounds of it the "Bassmatic" company is who you need to talk to,check this link, I found it by googling "Amputee Fishing" there was a few more refrences to articles and products for people in this type of situation

[www.abledata.com]

I think the most frustrating thing that could happen to me is to have an injury that prevented me from fishing.

thanks for the info guys and thanks for the links Scott ...i was looking to build something but buying might be a better option.....i dont think he has any prosthetics..and there wouldent be much of one if he did have any ........thanks for the info well be checking in