Purchase that has disappointed you most

Hey everyone,

The unpopular opinions post from the other day had me thinking about lots of things related to perception of us outdoorspeople, and I’m sure this has been hashed out on here before but I got to thinking… What is the one thing I’ve bought for the outdoors and thought, man this is going to be the most amazing thing ever, then after using it, you realized it was a.) overpriced b.) not as functional or c.) something newer and better came out almost right after you purchased the product thus basically outdating it.

So what is your face palm investment that you were just not pleased with?

I’ll start, for me it goes back to my first big time investment in a high end rod, I saved up money from college for 3 stinking years to buy a g loomis rod. I bought a 7’2 ml that I thought was going to be my go to for everything walleye. I used that thing hard for the first year trying to love it and it never happened. I kept going back to my fenwicks which were 150 to 200 bucks cheaper. Don’t get me wrong the g loomis was a fine rod, just didn’t live up to the hype for me. Not to mention the next year a lot of the custom rod makers started to sell open water rods at a comparable if not even cheaper price point.

Second thing for me was my clam thermal pop up. Bought it pretty late in an ice season (without seeing a floor model, mistake 1) as a last ditch effort to set up for some night bite crappies and found out first trip out with a buddy, damn should’ve bit the bullet and just went bigger. The box said fishes 3-4 anglers…well needless to say maybe I could fit 3 to 4 children in there with a bucket and a hole and no other gear…One of those situations where you always should size up but didn’t and a tempting opportunity enticed me into it. With all our gear in that thing we are cramped with two guys not to mention even thinking about a third. Again it was functionally fine, not trying to bash clam or even g loomis from earlier, but just disappointed it was not going to be more accommodating. And this was right before the advent of facebook marketplace really starting to blow up, two weeks later my fishing partner found a twice used pop up that was thermal, larger, and 50 bucks cheaper than I paid for mine. I have used that shack probably only 4 times in 6/7 years.

So let’s hear it IDO.

Marcum recon plus. Neither the original one I bought nor the replacement one Marcum supplied for free ever worked correctly

The other one that comes to mind is when I agreed to buy lunch for that cute girl in my Jr college class. Wasted a few years there

A Loran-C and the next year Garmin released their handheld GPS.

Probably the worst one was buying one more beer. Seemed like a good idea until the next morning.

I can’t think of anything really expensive that I own in the outdoor realm that has disappointed me.

The whopper plopper topwater lure disappoints me. I got sucked into the hype and I think it’s a well made lure. I just don’t catch any fish with it.

gimruis wrote:

I can’t think of anything really expensive that I own in the outdoor realm that has disappointed me.

The whopper plopper topwater lure disappoints me. I got sucked into the hype and I think it’s a well made lure. I just don’t catch any fish with it.

That is really funny, my buddy when he goes smallmouth fishing, that is the only lure he uses, and he catches tons of fish on them. Huge confidence bait for him.

As far as the girls go crappie, most of us have been there on that one. Too bad it was years wasted though as opposed to months.

Switching from Lowrance to Humminbird Helix. I regret it every time I get in my boat, buy what you know how to use. Don’t fall for bid advertising campaigns.

crappie55369 wrote:

Marcum recon plus. Neither the original one I bought nor the replacement one Marcum supplied for free ever worked correctly

The other one that comes to mind is when I agreed to buy lunch for that cute girl in my Jr college class. Wasted a few years there

It’s not a waste if you learned something. Only a waste if you fell for it twice.

My Helix 5 it’s pretty good ice fishing but on the boat in the front with the universal transducer it’s basically for mapping Hardly ever marked a fish with it then tried the original transducer not much difference I did call customer support and got it set best but still thought it was going to be the cat’s meow. My Lowrance 5 is way better and cheaper.

My first Yamaha boat motor on a new boat 15 HP first time out it would not start and rowed it back at least 2 miles ice still on the lake. 2 weeks later after break in it blew up. Anyone can get a lemon but I really thought I finally made it if you will. The dealer was good and got me another but never had faith in it again had a 25 and 30 which were very good. First boat on payments and my wife cried all the way I rowed it back I tended to have strong naughty words that should not be used we really felt like we screwed up. The dealer told me later there was an issue from the factory with it.

1979 ford f150- went back to the dealer in two days. Worst pos I ever owned

95 Ford F-250 – second worst pos I ever owned

All the St. Criox rods I ever owned. Twisted, off spine heavy as hell. Canned them all and switched to loomis…..made more changes over the years but never as disappointed as I was in the at croix line

Nikon optics. Had a few ok sets on binocs. But when I tried to standardize scopes, for the money I spent they are one of the most inconsistent manufacturers. Thank god they are out of the equation. After owning Burris and nightforce, I really realize how bad Nikon was. Probably the most over hyped advertising ever

First sited locator that came out. Replaced my paper graph and that lasted 1 day. Put the paper unit back on and left the sited on the dealer’s counter and told them to shove it.

My first reloading press was a Lee. Big A$$ mistake. The piston wasn’t consistent in the stroke and it over and under pressed bullets. Cost me hundred of dollars to figure it out. Got a rcbs and a Lyman and problem solved

Oh, it’s depressing to think of the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve wasted

Way too many lures to make a list.

I’m with gimruis, very lil disappointment for outdoor items. Then again I’m a cheap a$$ and haven’t really bought anything too new, alot of my stuff is used.

I’m gonna take a whole lotta WTF looks when I say every single bfnt moxi and pulsr could dump out my tackle bag and I wouldn’t miss em a single bit. Bought so many from back when Ido was really river heavy content. Worthless for me.

Deuces wrote:

I’m with gimruis, very lil disappointment for outdoor items. Then again I’m a cheap a$$ and haven’t really bought anything too new, alot of my stuff is used.

I’m gonna take a whole lotta WTF looks when I say every single bfnt moxi and pulsr could dump out my tackle bag and I wouldn’t miss em a single bit. Bought so many from back when Ido was really river heavy content. Worthless for me.

This also amazes me, I also bought into the hype with the bfsn pulsr plastics and they are by far my confidence walleye plastic. It always amazes me when you get in the boat with somebody new for the first time, what tackle and tactics are “go tos” for them or “confidence baits.” Just within this post alone, already had two baits mentioned that myself and a fishing partner would place on top of our confidence list for different species.

I guess I never considered adding baits to this list in my mind, but there are plenty I wouldn’t miss either in my tackle box, I’m looking at you f-ing “hair jigs”. But saving them and so many other dusty baits as collectors someday to make a fortune for whomever inherits my fishing gear.

icefanatic11 wrote:

That is really funny, my buddy when he goes smallmouth fishing, that is the only lure he uses, and he catches tons of fish on them. Huge confidence bait for him.

I got 3 of them one time when Dicks had a buy 2, get one free sale going. So now I have 3 of them that don’t work lol. Won’t make that mistake again on lures. One at a time until I know it works, then I’ll buy more.

The 2018 to current line of Shimano Symetre’s (NASCI) have definitely disappointed. My older Symetre’s still get to play but the newer ones clearly were given cheaper, plastic components and are much more gritty after much less use. Daiwa gets my money now.

Another that comes to mind is pretty much every trolling motor brand. Motorguide and Minn Kota clearly own the market and neither produce a product worth $2K

one of those depth finder things that you put on the ice and shoot a beam down to see how deep. But i JUST HAD TO have it. No matter what i did, i could not get an accurate reading from it. I don’t even know where it is anymore.

………….also a jaw jacker

Gary Roach walleye master net. That thing can eat a crank bait and never spit it out. Went back to my $20 frabill.

Hard to believe have not read “Marriage License”

Most expensive was my current fish house, until I fixed it. I had traded my old firebrand in on a new one so I knew what I was getting in to with the electric jacks. I was assured that these new jacks were way better, wrong. Two and a half sets of jacks at 2-3 hundo apiece, I finally converted it to hydraulics. It turned out awesome and was a fun project but I am pi$$ed at the mfg that it came to that.

Every new Chevy pickup I’ve owned I’ve thought this thing is the ugliest truck on the market. After awhile they grow on me. This is how I feel about my current pickup…..

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I thought the propane ice auger was going to be the ultimate solution for me since I pretty much despise anything small engine/gas related. I can fix a house, but I frickin hate working on anything gas and the gas augers I had prior to that were a nightmare and always broke down.

Long story short, that damn propane auger was an absolute disaster. Mine would never run if it was anywhere below about 20 degrees. I was religious about keeping the tanks warm until they were being used. On top of it, the auger bit would build up with ice every couple inches and require me to take it out of the hole, chisel it off, drill another couple inches, rinse and repeat. I hated that thing so much.

I’m now running a Strikemaster 40v and it’s a dream come true. I’ll never look back from a battery one.

Playboy subscription.
Way overrated. The articles were terrible.

LX7

A couple St. Croix rods. They’re just the no man’s land of not as good as my one GLoomis, but eerily similar to any Scheel’s store brand rod at twice the cost.

Anything underwater camera related. The places I fish generally have current which means poor visibility. They always seem to spin and have a short battery life. The aqua vu version of the Marcum Recon I had I ended up giving to a kid I always saw fishing the local marina.

I had a Dewalt brushless sawzall. What a POS. The guard broke near the blade probably after 2 hours of use, then the trigger was going bad within a couple more hours. Thankfully I punted on the yellow crap and run Milwaukee everything now.

I had a 3 year old Polaris Sportsman that couldn’t get out of its own way after being babied it’s entire lifetime and being the definition of unreliable. It was a plastic POS.

sliderfishn wrote:

Hard to believe have not read “Marriage License”

She was in a position to hit me with a blunt object. I chose life

1987 Mariner 45HP outboard(Mercury made on a Monday).Should have coughed up a few more bucks for a Yamaha Pro50.

My first fish finder about 40 years ago . It was a garmin , came with a lifetime warranty. A few years later when it died, Garmin wouldn’t honour the warranty and claimed lifetime meant expected lifetime of the unit and not my life time . At 16 years of age I was to green to know any better .I was really disappointed.

Garmin got me again a few years later with my first handheld GPS . The instruction book was so poorly written I couldnt figure how to use the unit . It was written in geek speak and full of acronyms and abbreviations with words I had never heard before . The book was 180 pages at least Had to read to page 127 before the book introduced me to the power button, by that time I was completely disinterested and lost. I never did master that thing and quit trying .

Fortunately things improve with age, and You Tube !

My yetti fish house

2012 Tahoe.

crappie55369 wrote:

The other one that comes to mind is when I agreed to buy lunch for that cute girl in my Jr college class. Wasted a few years there

LOL! This might be the line of the day. Been there myself

Hmm..

St. Croix Bass X medium rod, I hate that thing piece of crap seams to light action.

Any climber tree stands,

The whopper plopper is a really interesting lure. I have caught lots of fish on it. However it’s one of those bites that is either 100% on or 100% off. There is NO in between. I will say when it is on, fish hit that lure harder than any other topwater I’ve used.

I don’t have many disappointments other than a few Abu Garcia and St Croix rods I’ve bought.