| Let's
start with fuel. Say you run a 23-foot walkaround with a single 250 hp
four-stroke outboard. Pretty economical package, relatively speaking,
but you probably cruise at around 2.3 mpg tops. Your average summer offshore run is maybe 80 miles round-trip at cruise. That's around 35 gallons of fuel, assuming conditions allow you to hold optimal cruising speed. At $4.40 a gallon (more if you have to use a fuel dock), you'll burn a little less than $155 worth getting to the banks and back. But that's not counting trolling. Say you troll for five hours at 3 gallons per hour — typical fuel burn at 7 knots for your ride. There's another 15 gallons, or $66. So your fuel total for a typical albacore/yellowtail hunt this summer sits at about $220, give or take a few bucks. Let's say too that you went with a middle-of-the-road boat brand and paid around $65,000. Unless you're rich enough to pay that in cash, you probably financed it. That means your payments are maybe $530 a month for 15 years after a 10% down payment, which we'll just ignore here. If you work, which most of do, and you have either a very understanding family or a family that fishes with you, and if you have lots of money for gas, you probably average six days a month on the water at the absolute maximum. That's 72 days a year, which comes to right around $88 for each day you fish. And that's if you get out one day every weekend year-round and two days every other weekend. The truth is that most of us spend a lot less time than that on the water — maybe 30 days a year, which puts your per-day payment at $210. Of course there are also a few diehards, semi-pros, nutjobs, bachelors (or bachelorettes), bachelors-to-be, energetic retirees and wealthy fish-bums who put in five days week on the water, cutting that hypothetical per-day boat payment to around $25. Nice work if you can get it. Let's figure your boat is two or three years old and that your annual insurance premium is $350. That's a bargain at around $12 per day if you spend 30 days on the water. Maintenance, of you spend $1,000 a year, comes to about $33 per day of fishing. Now throw in a scoop and a half of bait ($45), lunch ($10 minimum for chips, dip and sandwich makings), drinks ($15 for a 12-pack of decent beer plus at least $5 for soft drinks and/or water), tow-vehicle fuel (let's call it 20 miles round-trip to the ramp with a gas vehicle at 12 mpg for about $7) and, depending on where you live, a launch fee of $10 or $15. That puts your total cost for a typical summer albacore hunt/paddy raid right around $560, assuming you're financing your boat and fishing around 30 days a year. Of course that varies a lot. If, like me, you run an older, bought-used 21-footer that cruises at 4 mpg, burns 2.5 gph trolling, costs you $150 a month and only holds one scoop of bait, you're looking at something more like $290. If you run a fully insured top-shelf 28-footer with twin 250s that cruises at 2 mpg, burns 5 gph trolling and costs you $900 a month, an 80-mile round-trip run with five hours of trolling will cost you around $800 with a couple scoops of bait, assuming no added cost for food, drinks or tow-vehicle fuel. So, the bottom line is that a typical small-boat owner is looking at $300 to $800 for a day of offshore fishing — or $100 to $270 per person with you and a couple of buddies. I won't even try to calculate what it must cost right now to make an albacore run with something like a 35-foot, $250,000, twin-diesel sportfisher. Discouraging, huh? Well, maybe, but that depends on how you look at it. One way is by calculating the cost per pound of the fish you bring home. Say you have a reasonably good day and you and your two buddies boat 15 albacore averaging 15 lbs. apiece. If you're a skilled and careful butcher, they'll yield 45 percent of their weight in meat. That's 100 lbs. of albacore fillets. Again assuming you're careful with your fish, that comes out to $3 to $8 a pound for sashimi-grade albacore. Not bad — and a lot more fun than buying it at the seafood counter. Of course that doesn't take into account the cost of tackle, but if you factor in only the really necessary tackle — and not the stuff we buy just to have it — the increase is negligible. Lots of us buy tackle the way my wife buys shoes — more just for fun than out of any real need. Another way to look at the cost of private-boat fishing is in relation to other outdoor activities. Take a day of skiing for yourself and those two friends. At Big Bear, an adult weekend lift ticket goes for $64 these days, so that's $192 right there. Add in the fuel, figuring 150 miles round-trip at 18 mpg, plus sack lunches (about the same as for a fishing trip) and you're at $260 — or $87 each — without even trying to work out the per-day cost of ski clothes and equipment. It might be argued that skiing Big Bear is sort of the equivalent of fishing offshore in an older 21-foot center console. For the same level of experience as fishing in that plush new 28-footer, you'd want to go to Mammoth for the weekend, where tickets are $79, fuel for a round-trip from L.A. is a good $150, and you'll also have to pay for lodging and several meals. That pushes each day on the mountain up over $400, even if you can find a place to stay for $100 a night. Or how about sportboat fishing? A spot on a full-day outer banks run goes for about $185 this summer, or $225 on a limited-load trip. For you and two buddies, that's $555 right there (or $675 limited-load), without galley, tips or fuel getting to and from the landing. Okay, so admittedly all this math is a loose approximation at best. Your actual expenditure for a day of fishing is, again, highly variable, based on your boat, on how often you fish, on how many crewmembers you divide the cost with, on how far you run, and so on and so on. But I've tried to err on the expensive side. And keep in mind too that an 80-mile round-trip albacore run is about the most expensive one-day private-boat trip you can make. The point is simply this. Although $100 to $260 for a day of fun is a lot of money no matter how you look at it, the conventional idea that private-boat saltwater fishing is dizzyingly expensive just isn't true. In fact, if get as much enjoyment from it as I do, it's about the best deal going. |