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Stream via PATREON or CLICK BELOW TO PURCHASE.
DVD: How to Fly Fish with a Spinning Rod
DVD: Trout Streams of the Tetons
DVD: Trout Streams of Michigan, U.P. West
DVD: Trout Streams of North Carolina, West
DVD: Trout Streams of Virginia
DVD: Trout Streams of Southwest Wisconsin, North
CoppersmithStudios@gmail.com
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$120.
And if I publish a video every week that comes out to $7200 per year. This is why I ask for my audience to help fund these films by contributing to my Patreon account. Now let me explain where I get these figures from.
Transportation
The IRS lists the cost of driving a vehicle as $0.65 per mile. This accounts not just for the gasoline but also the maintenance of the vehicle (oil changes, new tires, etc) and eventually the cost of having to buy a new vehicle. For the record I drive a 4 cylinder Jeep, barely capable of towing my little 13' trailer and one of the less expensive SUVs on the market but still capable of navigating the sometimes very rough roads leading to the trout streams.
Getting to the General Region
I live in North Carolina but do a lot of fishing and filming in the Rockies, upper Midwest and the North East. To reduce the costs of driving so far I typically stay for 6 weeks at a time. This would cover the spring or fall season typical in the Eastern states. When I go to the Rockies I would go for 3 months at a time, mid-July thru mid-October which corresponds to the length of the fishable season. Most of my future fishing/filming expeditions will probably be grouped into a 6 week trip each spring and fall, so for this analysis we will assume it is a 6 week trip. On average, the drive from my home to the region to be filmed is about 1120 miles. Round trip this would be about $1456.
Getting to the Individual Streams
The distance from the campground to the trout stream is typically between 5 to 50 miles. The average is around 25. Round trip this would be 50 miles. One out of 10 streams either requires a 2nd day to fish or the trip gets cancelled after I drive there due to weather, lack of access or unfishable conditions, so lets round this up by 10% to 55 miles per stream filmed. The cost spent on driving from the base camp to film an individual stream is 55 x $0.65 = $35.75.
Camping Fees
After transportation, camping fees are my next major expense. The campgrounds I stay at typically charge between $15 to $65 a night. If it charges more than $65 I refuse to stay at it. I need to choose a campground that is nearby a group of trout streams otherwise I spend more money on transportation and also loose time with additional driving, so often I don't have much of a choice in my campground selection. I will put the average cost at $30 a night.
Inefficiencies
In a 6 week trip we have 42 days available. However, consider that once every 10 days I relocate to a new campground for a loss of 3 days per trip. Consider there is usually at least 1 day per week when fishing is not possible due to rain. That doesn't happen so much in the west but east of the Mississippi rain is very common. That will amount to 6 lost days due to rain. Also there will typically be at least 3 streams that require 2 days to fish due to their length and their importance. So the total number of streams that can be successfully fished and filmed in a 6 week fishing expedition is
totals days - relocation days - rain days - double stream days
42 - 3 - 6 - 3 = 30
In a 6 week fishing expedition I hope to fish and film 30 unique streams. Sometimes I have an equipment breakdown that will require an extra day off to fix. For example, one day in Vermont my computer died and I had to drive to New Hampshire to get a new one. Without that I would not have been able to backup my film and would have run out of memory. Once in Wyoming my car battery died and I had to spend a day getting a new battery. Probably the most common problem is a lot of rain that leaves everything too high for a week. If that gets too bad then I might relocate to an adjacent state, although doing so is tricky because there might not be any campgrounds with openings for that time. So 30 streams from a 6 week fishing expedition is an optimistic expectation.
Equipment & Miscellaneous Costs
New waders probably lead the list here. To cover the streams and show as much of it as possible I end up doing a lot of bush whacking that reduces the lifespan of them. Trust me, I don't wear the expensive Simms brand and I have a large supply of wader repair materials but eventually they need to be replaced. Similar with wading boots. Unlike most anglers I also have camera equipment and computer equipment I need to buy. I don't know anyone who spends entire days wading in a slippery, snag filled stream with two expensive non-water proof cameras on them. On average they last about 3 years in such harsh environments. And don't forget about drones. For the miscellaneous costs we have licenses, vehicle passes, guide books, web site costs, camping supplies and various other things. Overall I would estimate this comes out to at least $300 per 6 week trip.
Summary
Assuming 30 streams filmed during a 6 week expedition:
$1456 to drive to the region -> $48.25 per stream
Cost of driving to each individual stream from the base camp: $35.75
Camping fees per stream: $30 x 42 days / (30 streams) = $42
Equipment expenses: $300 / 30 streams = $10 per stream
Total: $48 + $35 + $42 + $10 = $135
For every stream filmed I get back about 10% of the costs by various film royalties. So the adjusted costs after revenue considerations is around $120. If I wish to go on two 6 week fishing filming expeditions, which would be necessary to maintain the pace of publishing one video of one stream per week, that would cost 2 x 30 x $120 = $7200 per year.
So that is the magic number, $120 per stream and $7200 per year to publish 1 stream video each week. If you subscribe to my Patreon account you can help with these costs. I am currently retired from my previous job and am living off my limited savings. I wish to point out that I appear to be the only person who is publishing high quality videos of trout streams in the USA and actually listing the name of the stream. I do this work because I am fairly certain no one else will. Eventually I will get too old for this. It is therefore my recommendation the trout fishing community help support the funding for this work while I am still around to do it.
Regards,
Dan Coppersmith 12/17/2024
Created by: Dan Coppersmith 2024| www.CoppersmithStudios.com