The Price of Success

You know the credit card commercials that end in the word" priceless"? Its usually about making a memory like seeing your kids face on Christmas morning or seeing a sunset at Key West. The point of the commercial is you can't put a price on the memory.

The $201 Lake trout

I beg to differ. As you all know I spent a lot of time going to Wachusetts Reservoir this year searching for lake trout. I finally caught one on my last trip there on November 12. It was the first and so far only lake trout of my life. I would like to tell you that finally catching a " togue" after all those attempts was priceless. However after thinking about it lying in bed a couple nights ago I figured out exactly how much that memory cost me.

I went to Wachusetts five times this year searching for the elusive trout and once last year.  So that's six trips. According to mapquest it is 50 miles from my house  to the southern part of the lake ( the closest point to the highway). I do not know the exact distance around the lake but it has 37 miles of shoreline. I think its safe to say its around 40 road miles around the lake. I did that each of my six trips. So each time I went to Wachusetts I drove roughly 140 miles, if not slightly more.I get about 22 miles/ gallon of gas. Also to keep things simple, lets say gas averaged $3.50 a gallon for all my trips combined. Again, I think I'm low balling, but I don't want to exaggerate either.

I stopped at the bait shop each trip. I knew my best chances of landing a laker were with bait. I would buy worms, small shiners, and medium shiners. Sometimes I'd get a dozen of each size, other times just six of each. To make things round and easy, I averaged about $10 a pop every time I walked into the bait store. Also I put braid on one of my carp rods so I would get better casting distance to fish deeper water. This paid off because its the rod I caught the trout on.

Although I brought lunch with me and stopped at the Cumberland Farms a couple times for drinks and candy, I will not count that as adding to the expense.. I have to eat anyway whether fishing or home. I will count the stop at Dunkin Donuts with Jeff. I work at a donut shop, so I get free coffee, hot chocolate and donuts five days a week. Also, I stay out of donut shops on my day off because I try not to think about work when I'm not working. However, we were cold and hungry, so I stopped. I bought a muffin and hot chocolate. I don't know the cost maybe $4?

Six times to " the Chu"  times 140/round trip=  840 miles

840 miles / 22 mpg= 38 gallons x 3.50 gallon= $133

$133- 10dollars ( the time Jeff went he chipped in on gas) = $123

$123 + 60 at the bait store= $183 + 4 ( Dunkin Donuts) + $ 14 for braided line=   Final answer of $201

There it is. Two hundred dollars, one fish. I kept and ate it. It was 19 inches long. To be fair there were some good size fillets, so I might have gotten a full pound of meat. So I can say I paid two hundred dollars a pound for fish. I wouldn't pay that for Kobe beef!!!!!!!

Now truthfully the question becomes, was it worth it? The answer to that is simply this: I wouldn't have gone and tried a fifth time after getting shut out the forth if it wasn't important to me. I'm not upset I spent so much time and money chasing one fish. I'm just having a little fun looking back. We both know ( the reader and the author) that I'm going to do it again next year. Hopefully with the knowledge I've gained I will be more successful.

However for fun I was thinking of things I could have spent $200 on that would have been either better use of my time or more fun. Here is what I came up with

50 pounds of steak tips when they are on sale at Stop and Shop                     =200

lobsters on sale ( I will never pay full price) 6.99 pound  Roughly 25 that weigh 1.25 pounds     =200

Two weekend trips to New Hampshire and an overnight to Myles Standish State Park               =200

Eight trips to Narragansett( the same distance as Wachusetts without buying  bait    =200

Daytrips to Aquarium, MFA, Concord, MA, Franklin Park Zoo, Battleship Cove, Roger Williams Zoo combined= 200

The two big things on my want list, a 9 foot carp rod and a float tube                   = 200

Two cheap seat tickets to Kenny Chesney, parking,food and alcohol                       =200

Your getting the idea. Maybe I'll get a laker my first trip up to the Chu in April. That would almost cut my expenses in half to $ 100 per fish......Sounds better already