Productive Fishing/Limited Funds

[Deleted account]

57 minutes ago, Harold Scoggins said:

I understand your point, really I do. I also believe that it's harder for the youth today to make a go at it, however, I don't think it's impossible if one has the courage to overcome.

I remember riding my bike to the lake and wading into the water to recover my 50 cent Crème worm. That 50 cents was my weekly allowance for farm work. When I turned 17, I volunteered for the Army (didn't wait for a draft notice) and left home with nothing but the shirt on my back. The first time I reported to the pay officer, he counted out a little more than a $100 on the field table in front of me. I sent half to my mother and lived on the rest. (thank God for the free C and beer rations) During the twenty+ years I served my country, I got my GED, a college degree and teaching certificate. I started acquiring high end tackle in the mid to late 80s when my situation improved to the point where I could. Today I have lower priced lures sitting along side my higher end JDM lures. My point, if you want it bad enough, you can have it. My message to the youth today; for most of us, it doesn't come overnight.

Thank you for your service.

A single E3 over 2 in this area is pulling in about $49k gross, and only about 1/2 that is taxable. I think if he/she can find the time between the paid for college courses, they can get a Fuego and a decent stick and hit the water, heck, they can even borrow or rent boats, canoes, or dare I say it, kayaks at most MWRs. Yeah, they got it bad....

[KraskiBass]

When I was a kid the Ocean was my second house, I used to go fishing with just a fishing line with a hook and some weight on it, real fish bate and had a bucket, summer times where the best time. The bucket was filled up in no time, never thought about different bate or different nothing. 

 

Life was very simple way back in the days. Today is a different story when you go out to buy fishing stuff is very overwhelming the amount of different things you can choose from and it can get expensive if you don't budget what you need. Even though I have the Cha Ching to buy what ever I want, I just have an inexpensive fishing pole some plastic bate, hooks, etc. And the bucket lol...and is fun times as well! Reminds me of my childhood that is why I came back on board for fishing, the difference is that this time is on lakes because I don't live near the ocean at the moment.

 

Is good to buy cool things for fishing but sometimes you don't need all that...telling you from experience!

 

 

[DanielG]

I agree with what is being said here but after working with $49 combo sets for a long time that actually were just fine, I am really enjoying My first good (better) pole, a Dobyn's 735 glass. Ya it's a luxury for me but finally at age 64, the bend on this pole is so sweet. Smaller as well as larger fish are more 'fun' just because of it.

 

That being said... there doesn't seem to be hundreds of dollars difference between the functionality of the cheaper pole compared to the Dobyns. The less expensive stuff gets you maybe 70% there. The higher priced stuff just adds some more to it in my opinion.

[Dave Davidson]

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for bargain bin square bills and medium divers. I know I don't want to throw a $6 - $10 crankbait too close to cover and risk snagging it but I have no problem chucking a $1.50 -$3 crank back into a jungle of limbs and rocks. Guess which one catches more fish?

[schplurg]

I mentioned Walmart earlier. I went to another one and they have a lot of stuff.

 

Bullet weights for $1 instead of $4.50 like everywhere else. They even had 1/8 oz which I'd never seen.

 

Mushroom/Ned jig heads for like $2 for 5 instead of $5 for 4. Weedless.

 

Bought a decent multi-tool for $5. If it sinks no big loss.

 

As I mentioned before, Ozark Trail $2 crank baits are comparable to BPS branded stuff in quality.

 

Bought a pack of 3 3/8 oz spinners with some stupid looking trailers for $5. The spinners are just as good as my $6 one.

 

They also have inline spinners, lipless cranks, frogs and poppers all for $1 or $2.

 

Even their Plano boxes are a third of BPS. They only have a few different ones, but the 3600 is $2.80 and the same one at BPS is over $7. I bought one and filled it with Walmart baits and pinched the barbs so I'd have a barbless-only kit.

 

They have plastics. Saw Yamamoto Senkos for $6.

 

You can also try eBay.