I mentor a young man (13 yr old) in my community and he has become obsessed with spin fishing. It's pretty much all he wants to talk about. I am a fly-fisherman and I don't have any good spinning gear. He also has entry level gear and his bait casting reel is always getting tangled. Our tackle selection ise also pretty limited due to my lack of knowledge. We are usually fishing lakes in northern New Mexico.
I would like to buy a couple decent rods and reels that won't break the bank but can grow with him as he explores new water. Maybe $80-100/ set-up if possible? If you have any other tips for taking teens out fishing, I'd love to hear them! Thanks in advance!
Spend $30-40 on the reel and $60-70 on the rod. A $40/60 split in today's dollars would get him a noticeably better outfit than I started out with back in the day-- An outfit which I still have, fished the hell out of, and never realized until I was in my 30's that it wasn't the Finger of God of all the spinning rigs I could own.
I still carry it on most outings.
If that doesn't work out as you shop, spend proportionately more on the reel than on the rod. A good spinning reel will work on any stick... He will decide his preferences for rod action and performance as he progresses and picks out his interests and niches. So he will be/should be looking at a lot more rod options than reel options as he matures. A good "old faithful" reel can see him through a lot of rod shopping and experimentation.
There are a lot of decent and better-than-decent spinning reels out there in the $30-50 price range, especially if you shop for sales. For perspective, there are fewer $30-40 rods that would be great system foundations. Not saying you can't get a good rod in that price range, just that they are unlikely to be getting fished a lot in ten years if he gets serious.
I would get him started with a light rig assuming he understands the joy of panfish (or of a challenge) and a rig considered medium for his favorite quarry. Don't get into technique-specific rods unless he already loves to fish that way. Research "rod actions" if you're not familiar ---that's not what I'm talking about, though. What I'm trying to say is get him a rig that's fun for bream and small trout, and another for whatever's the next step up in your area that he's crazy about.
There are tons of reel options. For rods, I would start looking at Ugly Stik and the cabelas/bass pro/gander mtn branded rods, some of which are often hidden gems if you shop hard enough.
Gander's no longer around, but ebay survives like a cockroach.
