Fishing does not have to be as expensive as the tackle industry would have you believe. A true story about one of the best steelheaders II ever saw. Old, retired and widowed he lived near enough to the Puyallup river to walk to it and he fished it everyday it was open or fishable. He had to save all year to afford a fishing liscence each year. He mooched line, his gear was handed down and decrepit, his hooks were from gear he snagged. And incredibly, the lures he used were buttons of all colors, shapes and sizes that his wife had collected over many years as a seamstress. He threaded his leader through two eyes of a button and maybe added some yarn when he had some (his wife did not knit). On a river that many people passed over for greener pastures, I would watch him consistently catch and release 2 or three fish when the rest of us went fishless. And he was not a catch and release fisherman; this was only after he had filled his punchcard (which during the 70's I believe was 16 fish). He kept the fish to eat and share, but he fished because he had nothing to do and nowhere to go. He couldn't even afford waders and would periodically get wet when chasing a large fish down river. But he never let the almighty dollar stop him from fishing and catching a buck or two out of the Pew.

Thinking of him reminds me of the fun we use to have fishing for cod with only a 50 cent hand line rig we would buy at the local drugstore. I guess good fishing is more about good times than good gear sometimes.