Everywhere we look these days people are talking about ‘austerity measures’. We’re having to tighten our belts and watch what we spend every day, and this has a natural impact on our leisure time.
So here’s a recession-busting challenge to kick us off. Go for a session in November and spend no more than five of your British pounds (€6 / $8) in the process.
If you’re up for it, these are the rules:
1. You fish using your existing kit, terminal tackle and items from your own tackle box/bag
2. Your fishing licence should already be bought and paid for. If it’s lapsed you can renew without affecting the £5 budget
3. You must plan a fishing session that costs no more than £5 per person in total – this must include bait and fuel to get there and back
4. You can lift share and share bait, but you cannot borrow bait from friends who aren’t involved in the challenge, or use stored bait (save that for another time)
We want to know if it’s possible to fish on such a tight budget. Does anyone still jump on a bike and go fishing? Can you walk to a local river? What ingenious ideas will you come up with to meet the challenge?!
Tweet @mrcrabtree about your approach and results using #CrabtreeChallenge. Get in touch with your catch reports and let us know how you got on and we’ll share your results on Facebook.
An interesting idea. But you don’t mention if bait can be bought before hand or only on the day of fishing, or if the £5 limit includes the cost of a day ticket.
Even if you lived near a stretch of free fishing I would have thought that the cost of getting there (even if just a bus ticket), plus the cost of bait (a pint of maggots for example), plus the cost of fuel spent getting the bait, would be in excess of the £5 budget.
If anyone can do this I would assume that they live within walking distance of free fishing stretches of river and use cupboard baits such as luncheon meat, sweetcorn or bread.
I know I can’t do this, so it wil be interesting to see what results come in to the website.
Hi Simon, the bait can be bought anytime that suits and of course foraging for your own bait is completely acceptable and encouraged, so if you want to dig your own lob worms for example, that would save ££££s. A day ticket would need to fall into the budget so we’re really looking at free stretches or local pond in reality but it will be interesting to see how close people can get to the budget – if at all!
There is free water everywhere. Other than that most river club waters will do day tickets with a fully paid member for a couple of quid. Cycling & walking is free, even a days bus ticket these days can be as cheap as £1.50. Meat, corn, bread, worms and even plastic baits can be less than a pound. Worst case scenario it should cost £5, (£2 river day ticket, £1.50 bus ticket & £1.50 on corn, bread or meat, defo dig worms) best case it’s free. I’ll be doing my challenge this week and the story will be on here next week. Don’t say “I know I can’t do this” Simon. Get on the internet and find the free water, buy a tin of corn and get on your bike. Good luck!
An easy challenge for Jimmy. He can have a night out with a Balti and still not spend £5!!!!