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					Originally Posted by MikeTLive
					
				 
				pull... whatever. it's highly overrated. 
I thought I remembered watching your posts as you learned to make plugs. So I did a quick search. (love them serches)
 
from 2003. must have been like crack to make you feel like you need to drop it cold turkey.
  
 
 
			
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 Yes, I started in Feb of 2003 if I remember right. I never pretended to have been doing it longer.   And it is like a drug. If you have never done it, you wouldn't understand.  It totally took over my life.  (I have small trees growing out of the gutters on the house).  I haven't cut a cord of wood (even though I own 4 chainsaws) in those 4 winters either.  By next spring I won't need to worry about scraping the house as all the paint will have fallen off.  I do know one of my faults is an excessive, compulsive personality.  Cold turkey is the only way.   It's like cocaine back in the 80's, very addictive.  I never touched or tried it though.  Because I knew I would have liked it and watched too many friends lives go down the crapper.   So lets just drop this "trying to talk me down from the ledge" .  My mind is made up and it won't change.   family and other parts of my life are more important than spinning wood or catching fish.  (no I am not giving up fishing)
As far as the excessive compulsiveness goes, it creeps up on you.  Before 2000 I couldn't turn on a computer. (I am still computer illiterate) Was I catching fish before that, yes.  My grandfather started me fishing back in the 60's and I've never given up on it.  I worked tuna fishing commercially  back in the 80s for a while too.  But fishing is just a hobby and not my life.  Stripers are just fish, not some (holy grail).  Read some of the posts on the various fishing sites and you'll see  how a lot of people think differently on this.   Some are fanatical and some see it just as a way to spend some quality time.