In my opinion they are worth it as long as you take care of it but I personally prefer to run under $100, I have a shimano fx rod I picked up for $23 paired with the shimano fx 4000 for $38, I also have an abu garcia 5601 c4 baitcaster (retailed a little over $200 here in canada) I found in the basement I was told I can have paired with a daiwa silver series ss-31 I scored off my supervisor for helping him on a dump run, its also nice to have fancy lures but you also need dollar store or cheap lures for rocky, heavily covered or risky areas in general if you're afraid to lose your more expensive lures