Absolutely not. I use them every time I'm on the water. Use them to aid in launching, use them to control drift and use them to more thoroughly pick apart cover I've received bites in
I’m probably never going to be able to afford either of those things but I feel like it’s a sky is blue, water is wet kind of deal if you have basic common sense of what and when you are fishing. No offense brother I’m sure that there are plenty of people with expensive equipment that don’t understand what fish are doing at a particular time of the year.