Gifts for Fishermen Under $50, From the Tackle Bag to the Bookshelf

Pliers are the tool an angler uses most and replaces least, which is why so many tackle bags hold a rusty pair from the hardware store. KastKing's Speed Demon Pro is a pair made for fishing: 7.5 inches long, 420 stainless steel under a Teflon coating against corrosion, with 2.5-inch serrated jaws for working a hook out of a fish's mouth and tungsten carbide side cutters for mono, fluorocarbon and braid. Braid is the thin, very strong woven line many bass anglers use, and it frays or slips through ordinary cutters.

The smaller details are fishing details too. Slots at the back of the jaws crimp a split shot (a small weight pinched onto the line), holes in the jaws help cinch a knot tight, and a wire cutter trims leaders. The version we link has a split ring nose, a hooked tip that pries open the little steel rings that hold hooks on crankbaits, so they can swap hooks without breaking a thumbnail. The jaws are spring-loaded for one-handed use, and the grips are a soft, non-slip polymer.

It comes with a molded sheath that clips to a belt and a coiled lanyard, which is the part that matters in a boat, where pliers go overboard. The catches: KastKing doesn't publish the weight, and stainless steel pliers this size are heavier than the aluminum ones some anglers prefer. KastKing also makes an 8.5-inch version and a straight nose; the 7.5-inch split ring is the all-rounder, so check the listing names both.

Every time an angler changes a lure, they tie a new knot and trim the tag end, the short tail of line left over. Over a day on the water that's dozens of cuts, and most people make them with their teeth, a nail clipper or pliers they have to dig out of a pocket. The Original SNIP is a small pair of spring-loaded snips on a 36-inch retractable cord: clip it to a belt loop, a vest or a bag strap, pull, snip, let go, and it reels itself back.

Boomerang says it cuts braid up to 50-pound test as well as fluorocarbon and mono, with serrated blades of 420 stainless steel. Braid is the test that counts, because it's slippery and frays under dull blades. Slide the handles one way and the blades lock shut, so it hangs closed until it's needed. The cord is braided nylon, and the carabiner comes attached.

It's the easiest gift on this list to get right: even an angler who owns one wears it out or loses it eventually, and a second one clipped to another bag gets used too. The catches: it's a cutter only, so it won't pull a hook or cut wire, and it isn't meant for heavy saltwater line. Boomerang says to rinse it in fresh water after each use and treat it now and then with an anti-rust spray, or the blades and screws can spot. Boomerang doesn't publish its size or weight.

A fillet knife is the gift for an angler who doesn't release everything: a few bluegill, a mess of perch, a couple of trout for the pan. The blade has to be thin and flexible enough to follow a fish's backbone and ribs, which is exactly what a kitchen knife isn't. Rapala's Fish 'n Fillet is the classic one. It's made for Rapala by Marttiini, the Finnish knifemaker, and Rapala says more than 100 million have been sold.

The blade is European stainless steel, full tang (one piece of steel runs the length of the handle) and progressively tapered, thinner toward the tip so it bends where a fillet needs it to. The handle is birch with a brass ferrule, and the knife comes in a tooled leather sheath with a free-swinging belt loop, plus a small single-stage sharpener to touch up the edge. In its sheath it looks like more than it cost.

Rapala makes it with 4, 6, 7.5 and 9-inch blades. For panfish, trout and most bass, the 6-inch is the one to choose; the longer blades are for bigger fish like walleye and pike, and the 9-inch lists above this guide's budget. The catches: the birch handle and leather sheath want drying after use and should stay out of the dishwasher, and a thin edge needs regular touch-ups with that sharpener. It also has a blade, so it lives in the truck or the tackle bag, not a carry-on.

Most anglers keep their lures and hooks in clear plastic utility boxes, the flat ones that slide into the slots of a soft tackle bag. Plano makes most of them, and the EDGE is its premium line: the box an angler admires and rarely buys, because the plain ones cost so little. That gap is what makes it a good gift.

The difference is water. A wet lure dropped back into a plain box rusts its own hooks and everything near it. The EDGE 3600 has a Dri-Loc watertight seal, a base infused with Plano's Rustrictor rust preventative, and a WaterWick divider holding a reusable packet that soaks up moisture inside the box. The dividers come pre-cut and vented, an EZ Label system marks what's in each row, and the clear polycarbonate lid and oversized latch make it easy to find things and open it with one hand in a boat.

Check the size before you buy. Plano names its boxes by size, and a tackle bag is built to hold one of them. The 3600 is 11 by 7.25 by 1.63 inches; the EDGE 3700 is 14 by 9 inches. If the boxes already in their bag are about as long as a sheet of letter paper, the 3600 fits. The other catches: it's one box, so it upgrades one corner of the bag rather than the whole thing, and Plano doesn't publish its weight.

Every angler ties two or three knots without thinking, and then once or twice a season needs one they've forgotten: the knot that joins braid to a fluorocarbon leader, a loop for a second hook, a snell. Pro-Knot's cards are the reference for that moment. The set is twelve fishing knots on six plastic cards, one knot to a side, each drawn step by step with a line on what it's for, held together by a brass grommet that won't rust.

The twelve are the Improved Clinch, Palomar, Uni-Knot, Double Uni-Knot, Snell, Dropper Loop, Surgeon's End Loop, Surgeon's Knot, Blood Knot, Albright Special, Non-Slip Loop and Perfection End Loop. That covers tying on hooks and lures, joining two lines and making loops, which is most of what freshwater fishing asks. The cards are solid plastic and waterproof, 3.5 by 2.25 inches, so they can live in a tackle box for years.

It's the smallest gift here and the natural one to tuck in with the line cutter or the pliers. The catch is that a seasoned angler already knows some of these by heart; the cards earn their place on the two or three they don't. Pro-Knot also makes separate fly fishing and saltwater sets with different knots, so check the title says Fishing Knots.

The one gift here that doesn't go in the tackle bag. A River Runs Through It is Norman Maclean's novella drawn from fishing Montana's Big Blackfoot River with his father, a Presbyterian minister, and his brother Paul, the better fly fisherman of the two. Maclean was past 73 when the University of Chicago Press published it in 1976, after New York publishers had turned it down. It was the Press's first original fiction, and it has stayed in print ever since.

This 2017 edition adds a foreword by Robert Redford, who directed the 1992 film, and keeps the two pieces that came with the title novella: a logging story and a Forest Service novella, both drawn from Maclean's own years working in the Montana woods. It's a 240-page paperback, small enough to bring to a cabin.

Its publisher calls it a book handed from parent to child and friend to friend, and that is how it works as a gift: it's about a family as much as a river, so it lands with anglers who have never held a fly rod. The catches: the title story is fly fishing for trout, so a bass angler finds less of their own sport in it, and the other two pieces aren't about fishing at all. It's also widely owned, so check their shelf. The Press also sells a hardcover of this edition, still under $50.