Dateline 20/20 ... or is that 22-4? Anyway ...This just in:
breaking news ... breaking news ... breaking news ... breaking news

A new fishing lure released by 3:16 Lure Company has anglers up in arms over it's high price. The aptly named Armageddon Swimbait retails for $250, easily eclipsing competitors pricing and approaching the stratospheric prices attained by the original Castaic Hardbait produced in the mid 90's which frequently exceeds $300 on online auction sites such as Ebay.

Some may ask, why are fisherman so distraught over the price of a lure? Anglers discussing this topic online have this to say:

"Making an original plus all the testing and fine tunning takes a ton of time. Then you have to make molds and figure out how to produce them. It also has a very good looking paint job." - Mattlures

"I guess if the people of japan pay 50 bucks for a bag of oranges they'll pay 250 for some plastic.He will never make decent sales here in the states with that type of gouging,even if it is a sick bait.I'll wait til someone copies it for half the price and then i'll get one just like it." - swimbaitking805

"All I have to say it get used to the high prices guys I garuntee this is where the industry is heading...just look at cars. 10 years ago you could buy a stripped down Toyota pick up for under 10K. Now you'll be lucky to find one for under 17K." - magmaster

"This is funny" - woodchucker

Businessmen outside the fishing industry are baffled. We interviewed employees at major electronics retailers and asked them if they have seen anything like this in electronics. Al Pine at Circuit City said, "Well man if people want the stereo with the DVD and the GPS they expect to pay a premium. We don't get a lot of complaints because people can always just buy a cheap deck for 99 bucks. At least we can rape them on the installation."

While getting our receipt checked at Costco we asked TP Wiper if he hears people complaining about prices at Costco. TP's reply was, "Well just look in those baskets there, you see that? That's the 1 ply toilet paper, one our hottest selling items. Sure you could wipe with the good stuff but people are cheap and they don't want to fork out the money just to wipe their ass. They have options and they choose the 1 ply 9 tiems out of 10"

Investigating further, we checked out some commodity items, namely gasoline. At the local 76, our helpful attendant GS Pump said, "Complain about gas prices? You betcha, that's all people want to do. But they're screwed, 87 octane is 87 octane. It's not like you can put propane in your car if it happens to be cheaper!"

In fact the only businessmen... if you can call them that... that we could find who could tell us a similar stories were some crack dealers down in South Central. A Mr. Crak Head (who witheld his real identiy) told us, "Oh you should see 'em when the price of crack goes up. Makes 'em crazy I tell ya. I mean, they could just quit smokin the crack or smoke some weed instead but instead they just get crazy when the price goes up and start wanting to bust heads!".

Our only conclusion we can make here at 20/20 is that fishermen must be so addicted to fishing lures that they act as some sort of drug to them. Barbara Walters has recommended contacting Homeland Security in case rowdy fishermen start robbing banks in droves to finance their lure purchasing habits. Says John Stossel, "Supplies of this Armageddon fishing lure are running dangerously low online and National Security may be threatened as frenzied fishermen upset by the high price go on reckless rampages!"

Editors Note: No animals were harmed during the making of this report ... well except that chicken I ate in my taco at taco bell. Oh yeah, and this is all completely made up except for the first quotes.

:7 LOL :7

Too funny!!!!!!

Barbera Walters scares me ;(

I gotta lighten the mood around here somehow :o I think most of you guys who feel strongly about this deal would all get along fine in person and although the thread has walked the line of what I usually put up with here, you guys are all entitled to your opinions and I believe that two interesting things that are already in motion will be accelerated by this discussion. The first is that even more people will enter the swimbait market with their own baits thinking that they can mfgr the same products for a lower price and the second is that existing bait mfgrs will see that $100+ lures are actually selling and they will either raise their own prices OR use a lower selling price as an advertising point. I think in the short term prices on swimbaits may go up but in the long term they will go down as people realize that actually making money in swimbaits sustainably is very difficult.

What's funny is that the number of unique visitors to the site in the last two days has been 20 to 30 more than any time in the past 2 months. Fishermen just have a way of finding controversy the way a puppy finds a bone! Wish I could generate some positive attention to the site... Anyone want to buy a T-Shirt while we're here?

http://www.cafepress.com/calfishing

:+

SOLD!!! Just bought one :-)

Wanna trade?
http://www.cafepress.com/woodsaclures

Back to the topic, I think you're right. I also think the whole thing boils down to your financial status. If you can afford one, and think it will be a significant addition to your arsenal, then buy one. If you can't afford one, then continue to buy the less expensive models, and hone your skills with what is available to you. It's been said before, there is no silver bullet. Different baits will catch fish at different times.

Thanks for getting a T-shirt. You're one of a select few who have bought one so far :D I kinda just spent the last of my xmas $ on a pair of guidewear bibs, but I'll consider one of yours when the time is right. I definitely liked those delta money woodsac reapers I bought from you, I think those will catch a few for me this summer.

-Rob

I dont knwo whats funnier the actual post or the fact that you spent that much time putting together the post...either way hella funny shiii

sad I know :) Sometimes it just flows and at 80 words per minute I'm not such a big loser as you think. hahahaha. Glad you got a laugh. Let's all cheer up a bit :9

damn man 80 words a minute.....during your interview Mr. Crack Head musta got to ya

Nice Rob I enjoyed that! 80 words a minute...you want to come to my work and type all of my stuff for me? }(

Hey John - I realized I made a mistake, the crack head interview should have been behind the Motel 6 in Antioch, or maybe the parkinglot at Redbud. har

Are you sure he wasn't at Louis Park?
Tight lines,
Wade

Good stuff Rob.....thanks for the laugh. :+

Classic!!

}(

Funny stuffin Rob.Thanks, I was hopeing this wouldent turn south.Hoppy new year,spring is right around the corner lets all stick some phattys!!Cant wait to see Matts new gill.Hopefully it wont be over 100$$...j/k,I couldent resist. :-)

Good fishin all,
Billy.