It seems like the cost of going fishing just keeps going up and up.
 
Just purchasing a license anymore can put a dent in the old wallet. Add special fees and enhancements for where you want to fish, what you want to catch and how many fishing rods you’d like to use, and it gets kind of spendy.
 
Add into that the gas, food and lodging for a few days on the river and now you are talking some serious money.
 
Then there are the incidentals.
 
No, I’m not talking about the lures, weights, fishing line and other tackle. I am talking about the incidental costs that just kind of pop up on a fishing trip.
 
Last year one of the little incidentals was created by me backing my trailer off of the launch in the middle of a rainstorm in the pre-dawn darkness. That little mishap ruined a perfectly good tire and boogered up my trailer fender. The tire cost $120 to replace. I haven’t had the stomach to see what a new fender replacement will cost. For now, I’m just towing the boat with a messed-up fender.
 
Just the year before that, I blew a tire traveling up to Brewster for the sockeye season, and the year before that the bearings in one of the hubs got so hot they welded to the spindle on the axle. Just for your information, replacing an axle is not cheap.
 
This past week I spent a few days fishing for salmon with family and friends. There were a couple of minor mishaps during the outing that will add a few dollars to the trip.
 
After proudly telling everyone in my boat how much I liked wearing my $100 Costa sunglasses, I immediately dropped them into the river. They were on the bill of my cap, and when I reached up to scratch my head, plunk, into the drink they went, never to be seen again.
 
In case you weren’t aware, sunglasses don’t float. My next pair will have a lanyard.
 
And I have no idea where to go about finding a mount for a ship-to-shore antennae, but I need to start looking. The one on Doug Jewett’s nice Hewescraft boat is now busted, thanks to what I thought was some quick thinking on my part.
 
We had been trolling along, fishing for salmon. We each had our two-rod endorsement and had different types of lures and baits deployed. And we were having some success — at least in getting bites and hook-ups. Landing the fish was a different story.
 
The third fish of the day hit my favorite Magnum FatFish plug, and Doug cleared the other three rods as I battled the hard-fighting fish. The first two fish of the morning had somehow gotten off, so I was more than a little concerned this fish might do the same.
 
My worries came to life when, just before Doug could net the struggling fish off the back corner of the boat, the lure came out of its mouth. It didn’t just fall out of its mouth — it shot out. Because I was trying to pull the fish to the net, the line and rod had plenty of backward energy loaded into it and in an instant the lure flew right past my face.
 
The thing is, the fish was still sort of rolling on the surface of the water, not realizing it was no longer hooked.
 
Sometimes a person’s brain works faster than a computer, and as I downloaded all the information about what was occurring, I instantly thought if I could whip the lure back at the fish I might just have a slight chance of hooking it again.
 
I know, stupid thought. But in that nano-second, that’s what my brain was telling my arms and hands to do.
 
Unfortunately, my brain had not downloaded ALL the information, which included that little bit of data about the antennae being located just up off my right shoulder, right where my lure was headed. Naturally, the lure somehow hooked the antennae, so my speedy whip forward on the rod pulled to antennae the wrong way, and the mount broke.
 
I don’t know what made me feel worse — losing another fish or breaking Doug’s antennae mount.
 
Luckily, we hooked and landed several more salmon that day, so the sting of the lost fish eased a bit. However, Doug can’t hardly talk ship-to-ship, let alone ship-to-shore on his radio, because the antennae won’t stand up without a mount.
 
My sunglasses will be fairly easy to replace. The antennae base, I’m not so sure.
 
One thing I do know: The cost of my fishing trip is going to be a tad more than I expected.
 
• Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & 
DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.