Some respondents confessed that they had sort of an addiction: “I think I am looking at just under 30? I know I have a problem but it [sic] just too hard to stop. I don’t drink or smoke, never have, never will. I use that as my justification and the fact walking out of your favorite tackle whop with that new pole, it just does’nt gets [sic] any better than that.”

One fellow blamed the fact that he lives in Florida for the 55 rigs he owns, ranging from tiny tackle up to pretty hefty stuff: “That’s the problem with living in Florida, in the morning I could be offshore the inlet looking for kings and cobes, mid afternoon inshore the inlet for bull reds, early evening on the flats looking for tailers, night at the beach kayaking out shark baits or at the docklights for trout and snook. Too many options, too little time…”

Another response was a little testy: “36 combos…Last time my wife asked why so many? I replied…how many purses do you have? End of story…”

One guy doesn’t have a clue: “I honestly don’t know anymore. They just keep multiplying.”

But perhaps the best answer was this: “Way more than I need, a handful less than I want.”

In any case, the question and all those answers prompted me to do a quick inventory of rigs on hand. Total: 30 rods, 28 reels. They range in size from a sporty little Shimano 2000 on a light rod to a hefty Shimano 50W on a stout trolling rod. Some get used a lot more than others. The Shimano spinning reels get a hard workout on the flats. The bigger trolling and bottom fishing gear gets put to work only occasionally, either trolling when I’m cruising the coast on my sailboat or doing some offshore bottom fishing on friends’ boats. Some don’t work at all. I have a sweet little revolving spool reel on a little metal rod that came out of my father-in-law’s garage and probably belonged to his father.  

Why so many? The longer you fish and the more you fish, the more you realize that different conditions and different species require different equipment. It’s sort of like carpentry. I can cut a board in two with a handsaw, but a skilled carpenter needs a workshop full of good equipment to produce his best work. As you get a little more sophisticated and acquire better gear, it doesn’t always occur to you to get rid of the old stuff that doesn’t work as well as your new equipment. You also want to keep a couple of less-expensive rigs handy for when your brother comes to visit and wants to go fishing for the first time in four years.

A year ago, I had eight rod-and-reel setups disappear from my flats boat one night. I actually let out a yelp when I noticed they had disappeared from under the gunwales. I kicked myself for being so stupid as to leave them in the boat overnight. But their disappearance was a bit of a blessing, too. Five of the eight were old setups that I probably should have gotten rid of on Ebay anyway. I used the disappearance as an excuse to replace those eight setups with six new rigs, all of which were better than the disappeared gear. I don’t think I would have done that had the old stuff not gone away. Quality fishing tackle has a look and feel that simply provides me with pleasure beyond the fact that it also helps me catch fish.