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Posts: 44
| OK… we made it through January. With only a few months until spring, better COVID rates, muskie fishing in the near future, outlook is positive. But we can all use another winternet topic to help us push through the winter… COVERT MUSKIE SHOPPING! I am fortunate that my wife understands I am an addict with obsessive behavior for muskie gear. But rather than explain all of the packages that arrive, especially since there are no shows, it’s much less stressful to covertly launder $ to acquire more baits that I absolutely do not need, rather than explain why the Musky Shop, Thorne Bros, MTO, TRO… are creating distribution routes to my house.
Topics:
EXCUSES WHY WE NEED THESE BAITS
- Cheaper than a therapy pet
- Better addiction than drugs
- These custom baits are truly artwork
- Time is my most valuable resource, when I am on the water in Canada, can’t afford to not have the right size and color
- I have more space available in the Ranger
TECHNIQUES TO COVERTLY PURCHASE MUSKIE GEAR (e.g., $ laundering)
- Cash only purchases at the Musky Shop, no credit cards or a money trail
- Turn off GPS location on phone prior to stopping at the Musky Shop
- Place order near Christmas and Valentine's Day and ask TRO to use a different return address label using the name of my wife’s favorite store, and then politely ask my wife to not open up packages since I have been ordering gifts (that’s not a lie!)
- Bribe my kids to not rat me out
TECHNIQUES TO ACQUIRE MORE BAITS
- Celebrate significant events (besides the usual holidays) with gift exchanges with muskie friends: Valentines day, Administrative Assistant day…
- Ease my conscience by occasionally selling a few baits on MuskieFirst, even though best case is a 10:1 buy to sell ratio
- Don’t question my wife when she makes online purchases and don’t EVER compare to shoe collection! (Rookie mistake!)
Please provide additional justification or examples to better enable my addiction! |
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Posts: 1783
| Dump the wife, dump the excuses. |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | I always found If I left the packaging in one of the waste bins in town it just disappeared in the pile in the shed or the basement if I could smuggle it that far. Big empty space under the console and back seat of the truck.
Last few years I have shed much more than acquired |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Back when I first started, uh, collecting baits, I told the wife I wouldn't spend any more money on baits than she did on cigarettes. Well, to my credit, 20 years later I've got a whole wall full of good quality tackle.
To her credit, she doesn't have lung cancer yet (but smoking and HBP did get her a stroke a few yrs back). m |
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Posts: 20248
Location: oswego, il | Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I don't miss the days of anything I was interested in doing being a struggle to even do or non-existent. 22 years happily divorced. I have at 8pm on a Friday night decided to go on a weekend trip somewhere. Mr. Hoffies nailed it.
Edited by ToddM 2/1/2021 3:07 PM
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Posts: 402
Location: WI | As we get older we need to troll more, thus the need for Headlocks, Mattlocks, 12" Slammers, etc. Getting my wife a new lure or 2 also helps. |
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Posts: 43
| My wife has a horse.
I order what I want and no need to hide anything. ?? |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I can't think of anything I need. If I did need anything, Sue would tell me to buy it. |
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Posts: 164
| jjm msky - 2/1/2021 4:48 PM
My wife has a horse.
I order what I want and no need to hide anything. ??
I'm not married yet but my Girlfriend has 3 horses so I know exactly what you mean  |
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Posts: 164
| I suppose I'll play along. We have an expensive, time consuming hobby. And when we aren't doing it we are thinking about doing it. I definitely wouldn't take the advice of a few and divorce the wife because you have to hide a musky bait package now and then.
I am currently divorced and was married at the start of my Muskie addiction. Divorced for other reasons then Muskies (or so I tell myself) Probably pertaining to one to many combat deployments.
In my opinion if you have a wife and family you deserve it to them to comprise not only your time but your finances and we all know how expensive and time consuming this sport can get. I definitely shipped some boxes to a friends house once the too many questions got asked about what I'm all buying.
If money was tight I had to hold off on certain things I wanted. If ex-wife or kid had something on a certain weekend I wasn't going on that Muskie trip with the guys. I make sure to check all schedules of myself, kids and now ex-wife before I schedule something.
One of my best friends has to ask the wife before any purchase or any half day or more of fishing before he can go buy or do anything. Now if that was my life I would of said bye a long time ago. Okay off topic now, Sorry.
But yes to add to the topic. I would ship boxes to a friends house on occasion when I knew I was spending too much money or making too big of purchases. Haha, wow miss those days. Now they are right to my house and like jjm musky said, my current girlfriend has three horses so there will never be any questions from her as I know what her horse care bills cost |
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Posts: 44
| wow... not the intent of this thread! Intent was to have some fun. No doubt you all need to lighten up!
I'll ask the moderators to please delete. |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | I've always bought in person. and used my own cash.
Haven't spent maybe $400. in the last 2 years. Don't need any more muskie stuff.
Now it's vintage cycle parts.
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Posts: 498
Location: Northern Illinois | ViperAce - 2/1/2021 7:10 PM
wow... not the intent of this thread! Intent was to have some fun. No doubt you all need to lighten up!
I'll ask the moderators to please delete.
Apparently this topic is more serious than you thought! LOL! This can actually be an issue depending on your situation. Since I'm retired and the nest is empty, my wife and I are very tolerant of each others' buying addictions within reason. She has the grandkids and me fishing (she makes me look like an amateur!). Give and take has worked for us for almost 50 years. It helps that I only have that 1 bad habit! |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | ViperAce - 2/1/2021 7:10 PM
wow... not the intent of this thread! Intent was to have some fun. No doubt you all need to lighten up!
I'll ask the moderators to please delete.
This is nothing. Winternet 2020/21 here has been either disappointing or delightful. Pick one and roll with it. |
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Location: oswego, il | ViperAce - 2/1/2021 7:10 PM
wow... not the intent of this thread! Intent was to have some fun. No doubt you all need to lighten up!
I'll ask the moderators to please delete.
It's all good. I was by no means saying I was divorced because of musky fishing. Would have never been able to do that! I would ship items to your work, friends house and get a credit card in your name only. My dad was a great one at hiding cash and merchandise, still does it to this day with his new wife.
Agree with Steve other than the covid debates been a pret mild winternet.
Edited by ToddM 2/2/2021 1:05 AM
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| My larger purchases over the years have been for carpentry and wood working equipment. My wife has sometimes blinked hard at the cost but agrees that anything I have spent was paid back many times over in things like family rooms in previously unfinished basements, furniture, etc. Now it gets used to help my kids and their spouses fix up their homes. Bought a kit to mortise hinges and drill lock sets in door blanks when we upgraded from flush to six panel oak doors in a previous home, along with an electric hand planer. Not cheap, but got a deal on the blank doors and saved over $1,200 by buying blanks as opposed to pre-hung interior doors, after factoring in cost of tools. Helped sell the home quickly.
Then last fall used the same equipment to fit an exterior door blank for my son's 80 year old home. That saved him a couple hundred bucks and a lot of work by using the existing casing.
Only issue is I really have started to run out of tools to buy, though I have my eye on an 18" drum sander. That one I can't find justification for and it costs about as much as a new Terrova 80# trolling motor.
Edited by North of 8 2/2/2021 7:33 AM
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Location: Eastern Ontario | Wish I had the money back for all the tools bought over the years and used once ( especially automotive ) would have been less expensive and faster to have the work done. Nothing more fun than laying in the snow to change a transmission with a greasy rag wrapped around skinned knuckles.
Edited by horsehunter 2/2/2021 8:08 AM
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Posts: 34
| Since my wife and I are both working from home and she is upstairs I can't sneak in any packages, but since she suggested I buy an new boat for 2021 I think I will lay low on the gear purchases, for at least another month..... |
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Posts: 2370
Location: Chisholm, MN | Funny thread! Advice to anyone who's thinking about getting married - Buy the big stuff first and have the talk with the fiancé about fishing before you get married. If she's not cool with the amount of time and money you will spend fishing, then she's not the one. I don't ask permission to fish or buy fishing stuff. I make smartish decisions financially on what I should and shouldn't buy. She doesn't care. We had the talk first, things were clear and so far so good after 5 years. No kids in our future so that clears up a lot of funds obviously.
But to play along with the thread, if there's something I want to have delivered that she doesn't need to know about I send it to my office. She doesn't look at the bank account. Lost her password many years ago haha
Edit - Also just buy her shoes and stuff. That will keep her happy.
Edited by Kirby Budrow 2/2/2021 9:37 AM
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Location: oswego, il | Kirby Budrow - 2/2/2021 9:35 AM
Funny thread! Advice to anyone who's thinking about getting married - Buy the big stuff first and have the talk with the fiancé about fishing before you get married. If she's not cool with the amount of time and money you will spend fishing, then she's not the one. I don't ask permission to fish or buy fishing stuff. I make smartish decisions financially on what I should and shouldn't buy. She doesn't care. We had the talk first, things were clear and so far so good after 5 years. No kids in our future so that clears up a lot of funds obviously.
But to play along with the thread, if there's something I want to have delivered that she doesn't need to know about I send it to my office. She doesn't look at the bank account. Lost her password many years ago haha
Edit - Also just buy her shoes and stuff. That will keep her happy.
Sold this to get married. Never claimed intelligence as a virtue.8-)
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Location: Chisholm, MN | HAHAHA! |
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Posts: 1145
| Kirby Budrow - 2/2/2021 9:35 AM
Funny thread! Advice to anyone who's thinking about getting married - Buy the big stuff first and have the talk with the fiancé about fishing before you get married. If she's not cool with the amount of time and money you will spend fishing, then she's not the one. I don't ask permission to fish or buy fishing stuff. I make smartish decisions financially on what I should and shouldn't buy. She doesn't care. We had the talk first, things were clear and so far so good after 5 years. No kids in our future so that clears up a lot of funds obviously.
But to play along with the thread, if there's something I want to have delivered that she doesn't need to know about I send it to my office. She doesn't look at the bank account. Lost her password many years ago haha
Edit - Also just buy her shoes and stuff. That will keep her happy.
IF AND WHEN you decide to have kids it changes everything. Your fishing time will be a fraction of what it once was and for good reason. Kids grow up fast and eventually you can take them with you but let's be honest. Most kids are not Fischer Smith and you won't be fishing 12+ hour days like you used to. To me it's not about funds, it's about TIME. |
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Location: Indiana | MartinTD - 2/2/2021 2:04 PM
IF AND WHEN you decide to have kids it changes everything. Your fishing time will be a fraction of what it once was and for good reason. Kids grow up fast and eventually you can take them with you but let's be honest. Most kids are not Fischer Smith and you won't be fishing 12+ hour days like you used to. To me it's not about funds, it's about TIME.
This x's 1000. I married well and love my wife. I can buy whichever lures I want. I can really do whatever I want with my free time, but my wife works almost every weekend. I used to spend 30 days on the water a year at least. Since we've had kids, they take all the time that I used to spend fishing. Some day they'll be my fishing buddies, but for now I'm changing diapers. I wouldn't change a thing. |
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Location: oswego, il | MartinTD - 2/2/2021 2:04 PM
Kirby Budrow - 2/2/2021 9:35 AM
Funny thread! Advice to anyone who's thinking about getting married - Buy the big stuff first and have the talk with the fiancé about fishing before you get married. If she's not cool with the amount of time and money you will spend fishing, then she's not the one. I don't ask permission to fish or buy fishing stuff. I make smartish decisions financially on what I should and shouldn't buy. She doesn't care. We had the talk first, things were clear and so far so good after 5 years. No kids in our future so that clears up a lot of funds obviously.
But to play along with the thread, if there's something I want to have delivered that she doesn't need to know about I send it to my office. She doesn't look at the bank account. Lost her password many years ago haha
Edit - Also just buy her shoes and stuff. That will keep her happy.
IF AND WHEN you decide to have kids it changes everything. Your fishing time will be a fraction of what it once was and for good reason. Kids grow up fast and eventually you can take them with you but let's be honest. Most kids are not Fischer Smith and you won't be fishing 12+ hour days like you used to. To me it's not about funds, it's about TIME.
This is changing topics but there are good and bad ways to introduce and get your kids into fishing. I have 3 son's all grown and put alot of time and thought into it from the perspective of their attention and keeping their desire to be on the water. I even wrote a couple of articles about it in our Muskies Inc newsletter. How many times have we seen a young kid in the back of the boat getting yelled at by his father because he is all but an afterthought not being taught. If you make it about you, your kids won't catch the desire you have.
Edited by ToddM 2/2/2021 3:02 PM
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Posts: 44
| When the young kids where getting restless in the boat, I'd fill up the large live well with a few blue gills. When boy was young, he would be in the live well trying to catch them. It usually occupied/distracted them to give me some extra time on the water. If the bite was hot, I considered shutting the lid on him!  |
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Location: oswego, il | ViperAce - 2/2/2021 7:19 PM
When the young kids where getting restless in the boat, I'd fill up the large live well with a few blue gills. When boy was young, he would be in the live well trying to catch them. It usually occupied/distracted them to give me some extra time on the water. If the bite was hot, I considered shutting the lid on him! ;-)
If the bite is hot there should be no reason for kids to be bored. When my kids were little I found myself playing guide and putting my rod down. I think that's the hardest part. I never stopped being the guide even when they were older and found myself throwing lures for panfish so I wasn't picking off the active Muskies, bass and pike in front of them. |
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Posts: 44
| My boy was learning to fly fish for muskies. I took the hooks off my muskie bait... he started to call me "chum" |
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Location: Central Illinois | My wife has a horse (down from 3). Kinda hard to give me grief about fishing/hunting expenditures. And a boat is a lot easier to sell than a horse. |
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Posts: 35
| you could try and eat a boat |
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Location: Neapolitan Chain Of Lakes | Gentlemen- You guys missed the boat (So to speak)) on how to work the onslaught of lure delivery vehicles parading and lining up outside your homes! The best girl I found and am with now accepts lures as gifts so I address them all to her and she puts them in Plano clear boxes under titles such as plop plop baits, jewelry (Cowgirls), and ducks (Crankbaits). When I'm hooking up the boat I ask if She can load up HER baits so I can try them out and she loads them all up! So not only does she enjoy receiving, opening, and putting away HER baits neatly in Plano boxes but she loads them up and enjoys telling everyone that I catch all my fish on her baits! To top it off she doesn't even fish! She just sits in the back and sunbathes, reads books, and is a beautiful net girl that hasn't flubbed a net job yet! My advice pick an intelligent one that likes to be quiet in the boat for hours and send her all the lures and gear etc. Just sayin' |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | esox109 - 2/2/2021 10:43 PM
Gentlemen- You guys missed the boat (So to speak)) on how to work the onslaught of lure delivery vehicles parading and lining up outside your homes! The best girl I found and am with now accepts lures as gifts so I address them all to her and she puts them in Plano clear boxes under titles such as plop plop baits, jewelry (Cowgirls), and ducks (Crankbaits). When I'm hooking up the boat I ask if She can load up HER baits so I can try them out and she loads them all up! So not only does she enjoy receiving, opening, and putting away HER baits neatly in Plano boxes but she loads them up and enjoys telling everyone that I catch all my fish on her baits! To top it off she doesn't even fish! She just sits in the back and sunbathes, reads books, and is a beautiful net girl that hasn't flubbed a net job yet! My advice pick an intelligent one that likes to be quiet in the boat for hours and send her all the lures and gear etc. Just sayin'
This is rare but last spring I did bust my wife on the phone with Brian Boyum from Beavers baits and she was ordering like $350 worth of custom color baits for herself. I have to intervene or it would have been more. |
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Location: Neapolitan Chain Of Lakes | Hahaha! That's a good one Kirby the ultimate role reversal! I'm on the phone with Brian every year as well placing an order for some customs and of course they're addressed to my girl. The decorum of this forum won't allow me to tell you how she labels them on the Plano boxes but lets just say it's not "Hello Kitty"! Lol
Edited by esox109 2/3/2021 7:51 AM
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| The concept of asking permission to spend ones money has always amazed me. |
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Posts: 164
Location: West Central WI | My wife and I each have our own checking accounts where money is deposited each month for personal purchases. This is in addition to our joint account where we pay the bills and other expenses. With our two accounts we don't care what the other does and don't need to ask permission of the other to spend it. There are no arguments and no guilt about spending the money. Out of mine, I purchase fishing equipment, including baits, boat upgrades, fishing trip to LOTW, and supplies to build muskie poles. This year, I'll have enough in that account to upgrade to a Helix 10 sonar, although I'll settle for a gen 3 side and down imaging system. I'm retired and it took a lot of years to be in this position, but it has worked wonders.
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Posts: 1536
Location: Brighton CO. | Never been married , Bought a lot of stuff for my dad and my nephew my dad is dead and my nephew is married so now I get to fish myself. My mom likes to come on trips but won't go out in the boat. my mom is 86 and I hope she lives till 102.
Had a buddy make the mistake of hanging all his lures in the rafters of his wife's washing machine room. After seeing all the lures and what they cost he knew he blew it. |
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Posts: 164
Location: West Central WI | My wife and i each have our own separate checking account for our own use without having to ask or answer to the other. These are in addition to our joint account which takes care of everything else. Our separate accounts are for fun or for gifts to the other. All my fishing gear and parts for fishing rod building come out of my account so there's never an issue. I'm currently saving up for a new Helix 10. |
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