Mud, Fishing Inflation, & Barefoot

A Blast from the PAST! I remember the late sixties and seventies as a kid, barefoot on the river bank, mud squeezing between the toes and fishing. Yes, we had shoes in the south but preferred not to use them in the mud. How did this memory come about? I was looking in my father's old tackle box the other day and found a few of these snelled hook packages. If you are not familiar with snelled hooks, basically they're assorted sized hooks with 6-8" of monofilament line attached. They're great for kids to easily tie the hooks to the fishing line. Interestingly, this package cost $0.98 for 60 hooks. It was purchases at Fred's, a store that still exists today. I think this package is 40 to 45 years old.

I am great at determining useless information, so this got me thinking about the inflation of fishing gear.  I did a little research to see if I could find today's cost of snelled hooks. After some Internet surfing, I found a package that is still being sold today and is similar with 48 hooks. The cost is $3.59. Now, doing a little math, I found that the increase in Snelled Hooks have averaged 6-7% over the last 40-45 years. So what does this mean? It means fishing gear is double the historical inflation rate of 3-3.5%. Why, because they can? Of course, this may not be for all fishing gear, but appears to be for snelled hooks.  

Anyway, check out the knot diagram on the package. Great, for kids learning to tie knots.

Last but not least, the back panel. Hope you enoyed this useless information. Hmmmmmm, it's raining outside and my shoes are off. Maybe I will..........Remember: Life is short, get away from the big screen and get on a big stream!