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.

I’ll admit that the average fly rod costs more than the average spinning or baitcasting rod among premium brands. The latter probably runs  around two or three hundred dollars, with fly rods averaging four to five. That is an assumption, but it is  a general observational point I’m willing to concede. But this is not a gross disparity.  An entry level spinning combo will run you around $50 these days, too. At the time of writing, a Zebco spincasting outfit costs $34 at WalMart.  A Martin fly fishing kit (including flies) is $39. That is a negligible difference.

Of course, you might want more. You might want more because that entry level gear has a low performance ceiling. Sure. Or, you might want more because the foam-handled rod with a plastic reel seat is cheap looking. Fine. But that equipment will cast and fish just fine for most circumstances.

You might also believe that more gear is better. After all, every fly fisher has a vest, tools, waders, and a net. Consider this though: does every “normal” angler have a glittery  bass boat? Or even a johnboat?  I’ve never heard anyone walking the bank of a pond complain that bass fishing is too expensive because decent boats have the same price tags as midsize sedans. Adding that is a choice. And adding in some chest waders is a much, much smaller investment if you were to go that route.

It is worth noting that there is a holdover mentality in certain dwindling segments of the community that the fly fisher needs everything and anything in the Orvis catalog to be successful on the water and happy among gentlemen. But conflating that opinion with the question at hand is a false equivalency. Furthermore, outside of unbranded or relabeled import gear, the legacy fly fishing brands run virtually parallel in price with more contemporary companies when it comes to everything from forceps to saltwater reels.

The bottom line is this: If you have the disposable income to do anything, you have the disposable income to pursue fly fishing. It is not too expensive. A cursory scan of numbers online show that photography, playing music, and collecting Lego rival the expenses of the average fly fisher. Prices could stand to come down a bit in some areas of the sport. Prices probably should come down in some ways. But fly fishing itself is not too expensive.