As summer wains and the leaves turn, its time to play catch. Actually, for me, catch is an year-round thing. But if you live in Florida, where swamp heat has actual weight, fall is a good time to chuck stuff around. I have been obsessed with the perfect thing to use in catch since graduate school when my wife and I would play catch at the end of the day, usually around 11-12 PM. It was a nice way to unwind and we could usually find an empty field and chat about the day.

I prefer items that are relatively firm, allowing for giant long tosses or bombs. I also like stuff that is grippy. Finally something that requires a bit of technique is nice as it rewards practice.

Since my graduate school days, I have wound my way through probably close to 60 different things for catch and spent an embarrassing sum of money doing so. I have pursued the perfect catch item as long as I have the perfect knife and with the same degree of research and nerdiness. So let me spare you the years, money, and wasted time. Here are my favorites, many of which are great for EDC.

Three Classics

This is tongue in cheek in case, you know, you are a space alien and have never used a glove, football or frisbee. They are here to compare known items to the lesser known items below.

Baseball

Get a good glove and it will last you the rest of your life. I prefer a smaller, more maneuverable glove like a second basemen or shortstop glove over a long-fingered outfielder’s glove or a stiff first basemen or catcher’s glove. A good leather baseball will last a similar amount of time and I have taught myself to throw a decent curve and by decent I mean slow, but actually curvy. None of these things are the least bit packable, but they are better than a football in this regard.

EDC-friendly: Very Low

Ease of Catching: Very High

Ease of Throwing: Very High

Football

Regulation sized footballs aren’t great for catch. They are big, hard to catch, and not all that fun to throw. They can, as you will see on TV, be bombed. There is fun in conquering the learning curve of a spiral, but for most folks and kids especially, this is a skip. It is also terrible in terms of packability.

EDC-friendly: Very Low

Ease of Catching: Moderate

Ease of Throwing: Moderate

Frisbee

I am a huge catch fan and yet, I hate the frisbee. I know lots of people love these and with some skill and patience you can bomb them. I found that they are hard to catch and aren’t great to throw. They are pretty packable and insanely cheap, but unless you have a four-legged partner you can do better.

EDC-friendly: Moderate

Ease of Catching: Very Low

Ease of Throwing: Low

Now for the less common place stuff.

Mini Footballs (score below is for Franklin Air Tech)

First, let’s get this off the table—the small inflatable rubber footballs usually emblazoned with team logos are 100% garbage for catch. They sting when caught, they get slick over time, and they aren’t terribly durable. These are a straight up skip, both for adults and kids. If you can find a leather mini football, its actually pretty good, but they are rare and expensive.

Additionally, Nerf has long been dethroned. In my 20 years of randomly purchasing and testing things, the Nerf mini footballs have been consistently bad. They are either too gushy or too fragile, or in some cases, both.

The world has moved on from Nerf and the best mini footballs are from Franklin. The Franklin Airtech mini football is a mix of foam and inflation—an air bladder covered by a layer of amazing foam. They even have good stitching. I have found them to be exceptionally durable, great for kids and adults, capable of being tossed with real speed, and cheap. At most, these cost around $8-$14. The green one is a Gen. 1 Airtech and is over a decade old. The other version is a Gen. 2 Airtech and it is four years old. They last a long time. The only problem is they have spotty availability. I thought they went out of production about four years ago and then found a huge stock at a local Target, even after they had disappeared from Amazon. If you see one, snag it.

The current mini football Franklin is pushing is an all foam, high grip design called the Grip Tech. It is an abortion of a design compared to the Airtech and but for the harmful fumes, I would have burned my in my backyard fire pit after two tosses. As the heir to the mini football throne, it is an epic disgrace.

One pure foam mini football worth trying is the Aerobie Rocket Football. While it still lacks the structure and weight to really chuck, it is capable of impressive flights thanks to its two airfoil wings on the tail. It suffers from the same lack of durability as Nerf footballs do and the wings are prone to tearing, but it is fun to play with and a decent substitute for the Franklin, if you can’t find one. Another similar design, the Poof Spiral, is a bit more durable and chuckable, but doesn’t sail like the Rocket.

EDC-friendly: Low

Ease of Catching: Very High

Ease of Throwing: Very High

The Aerobie

A finger-friendly version of the Indian chakram (which is a perfect item for this website—an edged weapon and throwing object), the Aerobie used to hold the record for furthest object tossed by a human at around 1,333 ft or almost a quarter mile. It has since lost its crown to a new generation of high precision, long toss boomerangs, one of which traveled over 1,400 feet, but it is a decent item to play catch with, capable of stunning bombs. I can easily throw an Aerobie two football fields and I am NOT good with one. A practiced person of reasonable arm strength could probably hit 800 feet consistently. This is not necessarily perfect for catch for two reasons—one, its long distance tosses prevent the idle chatter that makes catch so much fun and two, its thin sharp shape makes the device very hard to catch. Its basically a rubber coated chakram and given that chakrams used to be used to behead people at distance, you can see why its not great for catch. There is a floppy version called the Squidgie, which I tried, but wasn’t nearly as good at covering long distances. Given that’s the best reason to buy an Aerobie, the Squidgie is a no go.

EDC-friendly: Moderate

Ease of Catching: Extremely Low

Ease of Throwing: Extremely High

The Zipchip

Originally a Kickstarter in 2018, the Zipchip is a piece of molded bright fluorescent yellow silicone. It is basically a mini rubber frisbee. It is grippy, easy to see even in evening sunlight, and floats. It is one of the best, if not the best items for catch and the inspiration for this article. It does have a steep throwing learning curve, but it hides well in a back pocket, it can be chucked with some authority, and unlike almost every other item for catch, the Zipchip very, very rarely rolls bounces away when you miss. The throwing action, which is identical to that of skipping a stone, takes some getting used to. Even a small alteration in arm angle can produce terrible results, but once you dial in, you’ll have a hard time finding something more fun to play catch with, especially at this price. With some practice, I can consistently throw the Zipchip 200 feet, which is, according to the Zipchip site, near the max range. With really little kids, it also works for short distances when thrown like a traditional frisbee.

EDC-friendly: Very High

Ease of Catching: Very High

Ease of Throwing: Low

Solo Catch

There are two primary kinds of boomerangs—foam and wood. They are very different and insanely challenging to throw.

Wood Boomerang

The traditional Aborigine design is a true marvel, indicating an understanding of the airfoil shape thousands and maybe tens of thousands prior to Western science. The oldest boomerang is around 10,000 years old, and boomerangs have been found around the world, but the Aborigine design is the oldest and most iconic. The skill necessary to get the big looping, falling, rebound paths to a boomerang is very, very high. We bought a traditional Australian Aborigine-made boomerang online and practiced for more than a year. Even with lots of time, I could still barely get it to return. The combination of wind direction, the need for a large field, and the challenge of catching a spinning wooden blade makes a real boomerang only for adults and only for the very, very skilled or very, very patient. The idea that humans could hunt with a boomerang blows my mind. Those are some seriously skilled tosses.

EDC-friendly: Moderate

Ease of Catching: Extremely Low

Ease of Throwing: Extremely Low

Foam Boomerang

These things are like boomerangs for dummies. They throw easy, return easy, and are not terrible to catch. It still orders of magnitude more difficult to throw than anything else on this list other than a real boomerang, but with a few hours of practice you will definitely have fun. One large drawback is that like a real boomerang you need a TON of room for this to work. The Zipchip and the Franklin Airtech can be tossed in a hallway. These things need a football or corn field.

EDC-friendly: Moderate

Ease of Catching: High

Ease of Throwing: High

Overall, the Zipchip is my favorite item to use when playing catch, followed closely by the Franklin Airtech. Franklin should really put the Airtech back into production if they stopped making it. I love playing catch with it, as does my nine year old. There is a real learning curve with the Zipchip, but it makes those long, lofted bomb tosses really rewarding. My four year old likes throwing it frisbee style, but still prefers the Franklin. Either item is a great catch item and you can carry both pretty easily, though honestly nothing comes close to the Zipchip for EDC.

If you have kids or just like toss, the Zipchip is a great, cheap addition to your EDC.