Although it wasn't fishing related, I remember meeting an old friend for a duck hunt in Klamath falls 6 hours from home, and before shooting started he started talking about his great investment, it was one of the lowest priced shotguns you can get which he won at a banquet.(I'm thinkin' it's a piece of @%#!) He extolled the virtues of it's reliability and shootability (he had gone through less than a half dozen boxes of shells). When shooting hour arrived he got one shot and it jammed. He cleared it after a bit and one shot and it jammed again. I handed him my keys to get a spare gun in my truck and he took off come to think of it in my waders, my spares wouldn't fit him....get the picture.
He recently shot a buck at 9500 feet in Nevada in 3 feet of snow and had to hike down to 7500 ft to his rig to drive into town to get a knife sharpener to finish cleaning his 4 point, a full days back to camp in the dark totalling 4000 ft up and 4000 ft down. A big task for a 49 yr old hunting by himself.
It doesn't make sense to scrimp!