Published: May 31, 2008 05:56 pm         

Gas prices fueling high cost of fishing

Many years ago, our family spent a week on a northern Minnesota lake vacationing at a resort with several other families.

While the adults did a little bit of fishing, most of their time was spent playing shuffleboard and quaffing cold ones.

We kids fished, and fished, and fished some more.

Best of all, the oldest were granted permission to use the 14-foot boat powered by a 7.5-horsepower Firestone outboard that one family had trailered up.

The only condition was that we could only use it to troll, not to tear around the lake.

So we would obediently troll for northerns until we got around the point and out of view from the resort.

Then we would reel up our lines, twist open the throttle and tear around the lake — at least to the extent a 7.5-horsepower motor can tear up a lake — searching for fishing hotspots.

Now at trolling speed, the little engine would only sip gas; at full throttle, like most outboards, even that tiny twin-cylinder would drink prodigious amounts of gas/oil mixture.

So at the end of our fishing excursion, we would drag the empty tank up to the resort’s dockside fueling station and ask the dock boy to “charge it.”

Our day of reckoning came on Saturday morning, when our dads went up to the lodge to square things up on the account.

I don’t know how much of the gas we actually used but it must have been a lot.

For one thing, we heard our dads use some words they normally reserved for the company of other male adults.

And for another, no one could afford to stop for lunch on the long drive home.

Now, this was at a time when you could pull into a filling station and ask for a bucks worth, and check the tires and wash the windows while you’re at it, thank you.

Even allowing for the undoubtedly premium dockside prices, I can only imagine how much gas we actually burned that week to get our dads so incensed.

Pity the poor kid who pulls the same stunt today.

Remember those days when the cost of gas was just an incidental thing, one of the myriad minor expenses?

Today, at $4 a gallon, it is the major expense of any road trip, fishing or otherwise.

The cost of stuff may be relative, but all relativity aside, the cost of petrol nowadays undoubtedly has changed the way some of us plan our angling trips.

There never used to be a second thought about hitching up the boat and driving 100 miles for a day of fishing. But now, at 20 miles to the gallon, we’re talking about $40. A six-gallon outboard tank is another $24 plus the oil.

Combine that with the ensuing rising cost of bait, supplies and everything else that the day trip is going to cost, and, you know, that lake a little closer to home starts looking pretty good.

With both tanks empty, I can still top things off in my compact truck and my aluminum boat with a 35-horse outboard for about $75.

Not exactly pocket change but pity the guy who rolls up to the pumps with his Suburban and Ranger walleye boat bristling with a 250-horsepower outboard.

With both of those thirsty machines on empty, plan on peeling off the better part of $300 to get things sloshing full. That kind of cash going out the tailpipe tends to get one’s attention.

I doubt that any of us would be willing to give up our fishing, regardless of the price of fuel. But I’m betting that in the near future, we Minnesotans are likely to stay closer to home to do our fishing. That can’t bode well for the state’s tourism industry

In the long term, I predict that just as has been the case with vehicles, boat and outboard motor builders will start paying closer attention to weight-saving construction and fuel economy.

In the meantime, I have a friend who is wondering where he can mount a set of oarlocks on his Ranger.



John Cross is a Free Press staff writer. Contact him at 344-6376 or by e-mail at jcross@mankatofreepress.com.