After attending the class, in which I felt I learned a lot, I started wandering around the Orvis store and saw that the cheapest rod they had was almost $300! Worse, it didn’t even come with a reel, leaders, flies, or anything else for that matter. When I asked one of the employees how much they were charging for the cheapest starter kit they had, I was told it would cost more than $500. But, I wasn’t exactly surprised given that I was shopping around Cherry Creek North. 

I figured my grandparents and I ought to go someplace else to pick up our fishing gear. That place, of course, being Cabelas (AKA the one store I could spend literal hours in and not get bored). 

However, as a broke-as-shit college student, I wouldn’t have had the funds to even shop around Cabela’s if I hadn’t spent the last five years saving up hundreds of dollars worth in Cabela’s gift cards. Originally, I was saving up those gift cards for a 16-gauge shotgun similar to the one I shot my first turkey with. But, after several unsuccessful attempts to convince my very anti-gun mom to allow me to keep that shotgun (or any firearm whatsoever) at home, secured with a chamber lock and everything so nobody but I could use it, I largely gave up on the prospect of purchasing a firearm. Then, covid hit, which triggered all sorts of inflation-causing problems, essentially ensuring that I’d never be able to afford a shotgun (even with the gift cards) till I suffered- er I mean- put myself through college, got a well-paying job, and moved out of my mom’s basement. 

I did, however, save up way more than enough gift cards to afford a decent fly-fishing starter kit, which would enable me to take part in nature once again, instead of simply being a passive observer of it.