I remember starting out with cane poles and then Zebcos 60 years ago. Nowadays if you don't have a thousand dollars worth of equipment people say you don't get the real fishing experience! Working on vintage fishing reels and the modern ones it's amazing how we went from reels that would last a last time to reels with nylon gears that take a lifetime to pay for! I just bought a daiwa silvercast 100a for 30 dollars new and put it on 15 dollar 7ft rod off of temu and fished with it all day with no problems. I have more expensive rods and reels but when people dismiss equipment because it's cheap you're really missing the point because I know people that catch a lot of fish on setups that you don't have to sell a kidney for. Don't even get me started on having to have 20 pound braided line to catch a 2 pound fish either! 😎
