Recently I released a podcast episode entitled “3 Lies that Keep People from Fly Fishing.” (You can listen to it here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.) The first lie that I addressed was one of the most inaccurate assumptions people hold about fly fishing. It is an unnecessary perspective that unfortunately keeps people from giving the sport a try. More than that, it breeds resentment and bitterness. This lie feeds and is fed into by a greater cultural impulse that doesn’t help anyone. What is it?
Fly fishing is too expensive.
You might be quick to say “I agree! Have you seen the price of the new Brand X Fly Rod 2.0? A thousand bucks? Who can afford that?” Or, perhaps, the retort is “I can’t spend ten thousand dollars for a week in Alaska. I can’t even spend six hundred for a day on a river with a local guide.”
First, I’m not denying some of the outlandish price tags on items and experiences within fly fishing. But this is ultimately a fallacious argument. It is an appeal to extremes. By that same logic, cars are too expensive because there are some Rolls-Royce models that come in at over twenty million. Or, eating with utensils is cost prohibitive because Tiffany and Co. silverware sets are priced in the tens of thousands.
A quick internet search yielded a half dozen outfits for under $50 American. That means you’ve got a rod, reel, line, backing, leader and sometimes flies for the price of a tank of gas in your minivan.
Fly fishing is not too expensive.
