Confession of a Bait Addict

[Our second guest post of the week is by Illinois’ Duke Jenkel. He fishes the PAA Tour, qualified for the the 2009 Toyota Texas Bass Classic, the 2008 FLW Champeenship, several Stren/American fishing series championships and other achievements. He has a blog at his site and a pretty major tackle-buying problem….]

I have to admit, I think I’m an addict. Yes – I’m sure I have an addiction.

To what? Buying fishing tackle. I’m an absolute sucker for a good-looking shallow crankbait or topwater plug. Throw the words “custom painted” or “handmade” into the description, and it’s as good as bought.

I’m not sure if there’s a 12-step program for this or not. If there is, I may have to go twice.

I know I’m not the only hardcore fisherman who has this issue, and to prove that, I’m part of a Twitter group named “LBA” – that’s right, Lure Buyers Anonymous: #LBA is the hashtag. Tell me now that lure buying junkies aren’t everywhere (if a Twitter support group isn’t enough, what is?).

Have you ever surfed the internet to see how many places you can buy fishing tackle? It’s ridiculous. Any angler worth his internet surfin’ salt can find tons of lure vendors ready to scratch his bait-buying itch, all just one click away.

So…how’s a bait-buyin’ junkie supposed to quit with all of this access? Truly, I don’t know.

I guess we could do away with the internet (seems a little harsh, as apparently people seem to like it).

We could burn our credit/debit cards, close out our online pay-for-things accounts, and go back to the old days of actually visiting a tackle shop. But I don’t really think that’ll help. It will just cause us to spend more money now that fuel costs for our trucks and cars will be added to the expense.

I guess we can only hope to contain it, we for sure aren’t gonna stop it. How do we do that? I recommend you sign up for e-newsletters from any and all potential tackle retailers you can find. This will allow you to be aware of every tackle sale known to man, which in turn will save you some money.

Containment. Would it even be possible to say that the more you spend, the more you…never mind, we’re not going there.

So here’s to all you fellow tackle-buying junkies (you know who you are), who’ve bookmarked every tackle retailer you’ve come across, and who regularly receive multiple e-newsletters from online tackle retailers. Keep this economy rolling one click at a time!

By the way, have you seen the new hand-made, custom painted…ahhhh forget it. I’ll only say that I almost drooled when I saw them. Just have to click on the color, the quantity and “add to cart”…sweet, I’m in.

Side note: Remember, never buy one of anything. If you do, it will turn out to be the best fish catching you-know-what that you ever tied to your line, and you’ll have no backup. Feel free to use that as an excuse for putting multiples in the “quantity” column when explaining it to your spouse or significant other, or for that matter as a means of justification.

Now that I’m done writing this, I believe I’ll do a little surfin’. Don’t think it’s a good idea, but a guy’s gotta face his demons, right?