Cost of Fishing?

[DJD]

yes, you can fish from the bank. the old guy that gets his picture in the paper, alone with the big muskie he caught. was caught from the bank, with a big cane pole and live bait. if your following rt. 421 south out of manchester about 3 miles. rt. 11 will turn right and it runs alone side the river. and their are a lot of good deep holes of water alone that road. in fact thats where old man charlie caught all his muskie. you said you had been to the hospital at manchester, where you cross the river at the little park going to the hospital. on the left you will see the fire department, behind the fire department is a very good streach of water for muskie. about 18 years ago, I was fishing from a 12 foot jon boat with my 10 year old daughter and hooked up with a muskie that pulled the
jon boat around broke water before it tore off. and the water was about 5 or 6 feet deep. they are some good people around manchester. fish from the bank anywhere you like. no one will care.

Great info! I appreciate that now I gotta go down there for business again soon.

[fishhound]

i always said fishing is the most expensive sport a guy can get into
fishing consumes me!! its a way of life i didnt catch that first bluegill as a little boy it caught me love at first site lol and ive been hooked sinse so that being said i have two loves playing music is the other love from the boats, gear,tackle,trips,guitars,amps,livesound,recording studio i dont know how much money & time i have invested! but it dosent matter we cant put a price on happiness and a piece of mind and i take pride in both

[HURRICANEBOB]

Bought my 20 foot Monark pontoon with 75 Merc new in 1994, so its now 16 years old. If I sold it today I could probably get about $5000 for the boat motor and trailer IAW Nada. 50-60% depreciation. And that's pretty moderate really.

What keeps me from getting a new boat is the initial stupidly high cost like DJD noted to start the tread. $40 to $70K seems way to much for a toy, especially so if you finance it over 15 years, and then take a 60% depreciating hit on top of that.

Take a $40,000 boat, at 6% for 15 years. Payment is just $337.54, not too bad. At the end of 15 years, you have spent a total of $60,758 on payments of which $20,758 was interest alone. Now realize after paying the $60,758 in payments, you don't have a boat worth $60,758, it deprecitated and might be worth $16,000 based on Nada average depreciation. That's another $24,000 in depreciation lost. So add the total payments to the depreciation and your total sunk costs are $84,758, not including any insurance, registration, or maintenance. Its just outrageous to me. I guess for folks pulling $150K a year or better that's fine.

I think the boating industry and boat makers have priced itself to the point that the ones that go out of business DESERVE IT. To the boat makers that still put out good priduct at $12 to $20K, I say warmest regards to you.

Me........I'm gonna take advantage of the rich folks from now on, and buy the depreciated used boat that they stuck all the money in.

[floatman]

got my spring Bass Pro Shops catalog to day and I think Nitro has gotten the message, they have a 20' 1" Nitro Z8 with a 200 Merc for 29,995 and with Merc 225 for 32,995, still a lot of money, but almost 40,000 less then that one for 70,000 JMO

Gary

[MsgMills]

I couldn't agree more with the info in this thread. I bought a 05 Triton 196 and just love this boat. But last year i was only able to go fishing 2 times the entire year due to my bad back. But to think about selling my boat is a no brainer..No way would I sell this boat, it's set up the way I want a boat to be and it is big enough for my entire family to go out on and enjoy our time on the lake. Plus it's paid off and don't eat anything while sitting in the garage.

So if and when I am able to go fishing again, I'll have my boat waiting for me in the garage, might have to put new batteries in it this year, but so far I've gotten 4 years of use out of my batteries.

Plus when my boys get old enough to actually use the boat on their own, it'll be everything they would ever want or need to use on the water.

[DJD]

I guess you can get wiser as you age cause I am so concerned now about how much money I give away on loans that I would rather save big time and pay cash or have a huge down payment on anything I buy.

This type of thinking has me buying used stuff all the time...boat, motorcycle, kayak, lures and other things. I have purchased used rods and when they have lifetime warranties it really doesn't matter.

[bigfish65]

Price for a new boat is way out of hand. People finance their life away to keep up with the Jones's (so to speak). I have owned bigger bass boat's but seemed like I ran around more than I fished, because I could move around fast or looked good in my rig. I don't get to fish much anymore(work, kids, etc.) so now when I go my father-in-law has a 16ft Terry w/Evinrude 90. I have caught just as many if not more fish out of that boat than any other big boat I have owned. So, I just don't get it anymore, putting all that money into a big rig. Different strokes for different folks.

[FlyLie]

Just finished reading Bass Times and it hit me... When I first started Bass Fishing I felt like I had everything if I had a few spare hooks and a few extra plastic worms fishing from the bank. When we would toss floating Rapala's in the evenings as the Sun set it felt like we had the best life. Fishing was simple, inexpensive and satisfying...Of course things escalated rather quickly as I figured out ways to do without somethings to put more money toward tackle.

The big purchased was the used boat and even back then 9K was a steal for the Skeeter I purchased with a Yamaha Pro V 150 anyway I saw that the new Skeeter Model with the new 4 stroke is priced around 70K!!! Are they serious?

We, sure have come a LONG WAY since I was a lad. As a younster, didn't know anything about fishing other than you needed; fising pole, fishing lline, fishing hook and fishing bait. OK, not a big problem for a 10 year old; cut down a long, thin, Safrass tree (SP?), as there was no wild cane growing in my areas. Now got a pole. Talk to Mom, as she alway has some string that was around the meat she purchased from the store. Tie those lengths together and you got Line. Now need a float? Now that was a problem....no cork stoppers or other pieces of cork in the house...could have been a Show Stopper!! (HEE HE.) THEN I remerbered wood floots. Cut a 3 inch piece of wood out of the limb of a tree in our front yard... Now getting some bait was easy. Just grabbed an old tin can, shovel and out to the garden I went. Five or 6 spades in the ground, and I have a can full!..NOW, all I need was a hook?,...dam...dam...dam...no way around this. So pinched a couple of pennys and went down to the local hardware store. YEE HAW, I was set.

All true, best time of my life fishing for gills in local ponds and creeks. Great to be a child!

[HURRICANEBOB]

Let's create a new tournament series.........

It would be called the:

JO-BET-MO Fishing Series: JOn Boat Electric Trolling Motor Only.
Rules are any bait is legal, 14 foot boat or less, power by 24 volt trolling motor or smaller. We'd have 5 divisions, including a small mouth, large mouth Walleye, Catfish, and Striper series, leading to the grand finale tournament where we'd go after Sword Fish.

We'll all join and get the big big fishing names involved. After a couple successful seasons, the boat makers will all see the trend and start making lavish 14 footers. Can you image a 14 foot jon with 2 downriggers, gps, sonar, trolling motor, 2 batteries, charger, 2 windshields, 30 gallon bait live well and 60 gallon catch live well, as well as running lights, bass seats, 16 rod holders, a rod locker for 12 rods, and a tackle storage stand.

I bet ya after 4 good seasons, and the boat makers getting involved, a 14 foot jon boat with a trolling motor would probably list for something around$50,000 (not including trailer, tax, registration, or insurance of course).

[AndyG]

Let's create a new tournament series.........

It would be called the:

JO-BET-MO Fishing Series: JOn Boat Electric Trolling Motor Only.
Rules are any bait is legal, 14 foot boat or less, power by 24 volt trolling motor or smaller. We'd have 5 divisions, including a small mouth, large mouth Walleye, Catfish, and Striper series, leading to the grand finale tournament where we'd go after Sword Fish.

We'll all join and get the big big fishing names involved. After a couple successful seasons, the boat makers will all see the trend and start making lavish 14 footers. Can you image a 14 foot jon with 2 downriggers, gps, sonar, trolling motor, 2 batteries, charger, 2 windshields, 30 gallon bait live well and 60 gallon catch live well, as well as running lights, bass seats, 16 rod holders, a rod locker for 12 rods, and a tackle storage stand.

I bet ya after 4 good seasons, and the boat makers getting involved, a 14 foot jon boat with a trolling motor would probably list for something around$50,000 (not including trailer, tax, registration, or insurance of course).

Now thats a league I'd dominate... Been fishing a 10ft jon for four years and I can handle it pretty well. Fished lake kissimmee 14 days in it this month, and clobbered the local BFL guys in it. Didnt keep any fish but took pics of them on the scales just to mess with em . I had big fish and big bag, just braggin rights of course. One of them said he was going to do a story about me in one of their fishing papers, about how having a big boat isnt necessary for bass fishing. But Im gonna have a bass boat soon Lord willing.

[publican57]

A buddy tells me the kind of boat I need and of course if I get the boat, I would need a bigger truck to haul it. Problem with getting a new boat is I don't have more time to fish. In fact I will need to stay at work longer to pay for the new boat and truck.

I will stick to my Jon Boat, Kayak, Canoe and Ford Ranger. When I figure out a way to go to a three or four day work week, then maybe I will buy a little better boat. Right now, my tackle is worth more than my boat. And according to my wife, that is getting out of control.

If I buy something expensive to fish with this year, I am more tempted to get one of those side looking depthfinders than a new boat. I don't care what kind of boat I have, if I cannot find the fish what does it matter?

[kygorski]

Side scanning sonar? Heck I can't get em to bite sometimes when they are right under the boat. Several yrs ago when we traveled, I was forced to fish out of a 12 ft porte boatm it had a 5 hp motor and a rear trolling motor. guess what I caught one heck of a lot of fish, red fish weak fish[sec trout] LMB walleye and trout. Now if my sonar isn't working I give up and go home.Best fishing day I had in many years was on a small weed chocked lake, the only way through was OARS, guys in bass boats couldn't get into the spot with a trolling motor, and it was a HP limit lake.I watched an old timer catch crappies up the yazoo, how? Sculling paddle 14 ft cane pole.A big boat couldn't into trhe brush like he did.Any one here remember sculling paddles?