When you have to plan gas costs to go buy a quart of milk, going fishing can be downright risky for the family budget. But there are solutions.
Light tackle guide Capt. Norm Bartlett has one answer when he takes a busman?s holiday for a river drift-boat trip. For this fishing, you need two vehicles ? one to leave at the downriver destination and one to launch the boat a few miles up river. At about $40 for a tank of gas round-trip from Baltimore to the upper Potomac, this gets to be expensive, whether dragging one boat for two guys or two boats for four guys. Either way, you need two vehicles ? and $80 of gas.
Not Norm. He uses his pickup truck, crams it with two buddies, fills the back with assorted fishing tackle, PFDs, vests, coolers, lunch, other gear, a canoe, two kayaks and a bicycle. Going down the road, they probably look like the fishing equivalent of a scene from “The Grapes of Wrath,” the Steinbeck novel-based movie of Okies going west, with Norm playing Henry Fonda?s protagonist, Tom Joad.
The one-vehicle trip allows locking the bicycle at the destination, then driving up river to fish. At the downriver, end-of-day destination, one fisherman bikes to the vehicle and returnsfor fishermen, canoe and kayaks.
The cost, divided among friends, is about $13 each for gas and a little exercise for the cyclist.
Years ago, Ed Russell, of Fallston, and two friends decided to cut saltwater-fishing costs. They collectively bought a Boston Whaler Outrage, sharing the cost of boat, trailer, insurance and other gear.
A rotating schedule allowed each to be “captain” every three weeks with the authority to decide where to fish. Each “captain” had the boat Saturday through Friday to allow for midweek, out-of-season or off-schedule trips. They split the cost of gas, oil and other incidentals. If one owner did not want to go, the other two had the right to ask a friend or guest.
“We sat down and worked out all the details on paper,” Russell said recently of his successful plan.
Everyone signed off on it to avoid squabbling later. He also insists that the best chances of success are with longtime friends of mutual interest and some fishing history.
Both that paper “contract” and longtime friendship are critical in a money deal like this in order that all participants are on the same page. This arrangement ? or using a bike like Norm?s drift-boat fishing idea ? can save money. Best of all, it can still get you ? almost cheaply ? to the fishing grounds.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting and the outdoors, and he has more than 20 books to his credit. He can be reached at [email protected].
