My 4 year old boy spends 100% of his $2.00 a week allowance on fishing tackle. He was taking advantge of the 12 corkies for .97 cents sale at GI Joes today. My wife sked me if I had as much tackle as my son when I was a kid . Al I had was a pole a reel and maybe a small tube of splitshot and a 10 pak of un snelled hooks. Bait wass what you could find worms, grubs, grasshoppers or if we found enough pop bottles a jar of eggs. Everything fit in your pocket. We wore two pairs of pants and socks in the winter with our play shoes. In the summer it was barefoot or tennis shoes with shorts. Barefoot because your mom would know you went fishing if your shoes were wet when you were grounded from the river. mon was it fun with next to nothing and we caught as many fish as we could carry. Do you think the kids have as much fun today with all the specialized tackle?

I don't think that the amount or quality of tackle has much to do with it. It’s all attitude. I do think that kids in my day were much more careful with what they had.

I can remember clearly going into the Payless in Bremerton with my week's allowance of .50. For that I could get two comic books and a HUGE ice cream cone, or two spoons or one flatfish. It was a really tough decision. Usually the tackle won out, but sometimes I had to have that 8-inch tall ice cream cone.

My kids never bought any gear. I bought it all for them. They still had ball fishing, so maybe it doesn't much matter?

When I was a kid I used the latest equipment available... whatever dad had in the garage that I borrowed when he wasn't looking...

I have a feeling my kid will do the same... Heck, I still do.

I buy all my stuff except for gifts given to me. Pretty much all my allowance goes to tackle, For me anyways when I buy somethin with my money, i do tend to take better care of it, look after it, and appreciate it more. My $.02

I salvaged a lot of my tackle as a kid from trees and low water snags. Learned from others rigs, and hung out with the plunkers to get good tips on egg cures, knots, etc. put a lot of miles on my fishin' bike.

I still remember the pop cans wrapped with mono for casting. It was all fun!

Heh....so many memories.....One highlight was when I found out that my mom's knee high nylons were the best thing going when it came to keeping grasshoppers. They couldn't jump out when I went diggin in em for my next bait. Sure beat the heck out of bandaid cans!

piper,
Thats too funny!I use to do the same thing.I own the old brown plano tackle box I use to raid as a kid now.Most of the tackle in the box sits just as I remember it when I use to steel stuff out of it trying to keep dad from noticing.

Dad just retired a couple of months back and now he wants to get back into fishing.He was wondering what he needed.I started laughing so hard.

Pure irony as I assured him I had everything he needed!

As a kid it was a leader pack a hook and some bait.Uesd to hike Chico,barkers and mosher creeks in search of trout.I used to come home with some fair sized cutties.Dad could never believe that I would catch them out of such small creeks.As I got a little older it was salmon fishing from Illahee state park with spoons.Surecatch probably remebers Value Giant.They got all my allowance and small job money as a kid.It was never a toss up though straight to the fishing camping section.I guess there was the Astroid game though...