Regarding your fly fishing estimates, I'm not certain what they actually are, but after 8-9 years of fly fishing I still appear to be the anomaly when fishing for bass and panfish on my home waters. All summer long people will come up to me and ask questions about the difficulty and expense of fly fishing vs spin fishing. This gives me an opportunity to 'educate' them that it's pretty simple and as expensive as YOU want it to be. I have given many spin fishers their first casting lesson while on stream, and have brought a few converts into the fold by doing so.

I don't know about the Internet being a saviour, but it certainly has helped level the field on pricing, and provided one of the best educational opportunities we have ever seen. You just need to blow away the chaff.

Joe