Jmurphy87

Got my wife out fishing again tonight, she beat me in numbers. I missed 2 bites on the frog, within 10 minutes of being there. One I am pretty sure missed it and I royally blew the second one. My wife told me that they were not hitting the wacky black and blue senko, she wanted a different bait watermelon red laminate. I told her that it could be the color but doubt it, was a little windy out there today. she caught and landed the first fish with a good hook set, corner of the mouth. She is getting there. I then decided to show her that they would eat the black and blue fleck senko, challenge accepted. I started working shallow where my frog bites were no takers, moved from 3-5 feet deep to 10-15 foot deep on the outside of the weed line nothing. I went back to 3-6 foot deep water and still nothing. I decided that I was cold and that water was cold but I will hit the area where I had the good frog hit that I blew. That was the move, I let it sink and slowly lifted the rod tip, I never felt the bite with the wind but I felt the weight and swung. The rod loaded up and I knew that I had something ok on the other end, not huge but went 2.60lbs and put up a good fight that I enjoyed thoroughly. I use my 6.2 gear ratio curado mgl and it works and I feel like I get to enjoy the fight but not prolong it too long. my wife caught her last fish with about 10 minutes to go at the park, we were treated to a beautiful sunset. It was a nice short two hour session.

I really like the way that sounds, thank you for the insight. I can’t find a house around me now for less than $30,000 over that.

That sounds like a great morning to me, congratulations. It must be fun out there almost alone in nature. I long for that kind of solitude, especially being in the city myself. I always liked it when I lived up north less people more trees and wildlife were a welcome companion.

I know that feeling, or the river will eat it like they normally do.

Looks like a nice haul, should keep you busy for a minute.

That’s the fun part of it, you have to be sure they have the frog or just the tail. I am from the school of thought that as long as they have the tail and not the frog and it gets away without sticking them they should hit it again. I am probably wrong, although when I am throwing a frog I am looking for a fish that can inhale the thing like nothing not playing wack myself in the face with a frog with dinks lol.

I got out last night in the rain and 57 degree temperature. I was at work all day yesterday thinking about throwing a frog, it was going to be over cast and ran so why not. This was the second day of a cold front that has come through. I had a fish roll on it within 5 cast, although he didn’t grab it. I could coax them into hitting it with either letting it sit there or popping it or changing my cadence with the walk. I had a few of them grab it and take it under. But when you tried to reel in and feel them to set the hook there was nothing there. I then deduced that they were either grabbing the longer tails and not getting the body or that they were smaller fish. I decided to break out the choppo and my conclusion was proven with the dink that I caught. He just barely had the rear treble in his mouth, so they were nipping at the bait. I tried the choppo some more and they were not hitting it so back to the frog, had a few more miss it and nippers so I moved around a little bit. By this time I was soaking wet and cold so I decided to pack it in. Hey at least I didn’t get skunked, fish was caught just outside the weed edge.

I am sure that you will really enjoy the 844, I had a hard time choosing a single rod to do a little bit of everything. I went with the conquest and I could not be happier, the rod is surprisingly good with a little bit of everything. My rod is paired with a curado 150 mgl and 14lb fluorocarbon, I have thrown rapala dt-4 on this rod and it casted them good enough for me. I have caught fish on about every presentation and it just keeps surprising me. This past weekend in a river with a 1/4oz tungsten swing head jig you could feel everything on the bottom. Enjoy the new rod.

No problem, I like sharing my experiences because someone might get some useful information that they can use someday out of it. I enjoy helping others out and being able to teach them new things. No clue why just do lol.

That’s a good idea, also I use a scale to weigh them to be as accurate as it is. I don’t really care how big they are, as long as I am catching fish I am happy. I still like the fight from the big ones. Although the little ones are real scrappers sometimes.

I got out twice today, wanted to try my choppo on mono instead of 14lb fluorocarbon that I normally use on my other reel. I was coming through some sparse weeds and had one roll on it and miss it completely. I think I startled it and it wasn’t going after it to eat it. I then kept fishing in the rain in my hoodie, felt good with the temperatures we had last week. Managed to blow my reel up on a cast and tried to get it out for 8 minutes and decided that I needed to go get some groceries lol. I was there for a hour tops at spring valley fishing. Off to the store I went defeated, the store was crazy busy. I got home and got the mess out of the reel and salvaged the last half of the spool. I have big game on it and could respool it but I didn’t want to. I was happy and figured that is still plenty of line. I had to pick my son up in allegan and figured that I might as well put it to the test again and make sure that I had enough line on the reel still. I was still using the choppo and bombing cast and had enough line on the reel. I kept at it a while moved spots and casted and came back through where I caught a pike a little while back. I had a light strike but it didn’t grab it. I kept trying different angles and eventually caught a small smallie about 20 feet off the bank. The spot was perfectly set up as a ambush point, shallow rocky point leading to a flat with a drop on the outside. It was a good day and fun, I can’t complain. I find it nuts how camera positions change the size of fish, one pic he looks smaller and the other he looks bigger than he was. I always like trying to make my fish look as small as possible. I catch fish and I don’t want to lie about there size.

I agree that it is probably 5lbs, has nice thick shoulders and a nice tummy to go with it. Great job today you are on fire like I knew you would be. I am looking forward to hearing about your future trips with anticipation ? have a great night.

I will check that out, I have a spider wire one that I bought my kid for school. He didn’t use it, now it’s full of soft plastics lol. Might just have to unload it and use it. The only problem is that I use 3700 size trays and you need a bag that accepts those with some room to spare.

Awesome, I am so happy for you. I knew that it was not going to be long and you would catch a big one. That bog looks beautiful and serene, that’s part of the reason I go fishing is to escape the madness of this world and to be lost in the serenity of nature and realize that the things that we worry about everyday don’t really matter. Nature provides you just got to slow down and realize it. Congratulations on the new PB.

I would say that it could be a factor of color or possibly the hooks, I threw a choppo yesterday and they were hooking there selves practically. I have had a similar experience with a megabass pop x, I caught a pike on it and it bent the rear treble hook out a little. I decided to replace the hook with a owner tournament trailer feathered treble with red, the lure color was baby bass. I wanted a different contrast, that lure gave me the blues trying to catch a fish on it after that. It took hours to make it happen. They would blowup on it and then I couldn’t hook them or they would completely miss it. I have caught multiple fish on the pop max like nothing. I know sometimes they just are not hitting it right and hooking them can seem impossible but stick with it. You will catch one even bigger and be that much more excited. I use owner hooks, although the Berkley fusion 19 hooks seem pretty good also.

I usually go light with my weight unless they are nipping at the tail, that’s when I go to a heavier weight to give them less time to look at it and trigger a reaction strike. One of the places where I fish that was the ticket to getting bites with a hookup, versus getting the tail chewed off slowly.

Thank you for the recommendation on the backpack, I appreciate it.I have had my bag for 3-4 years now, it’s starting to show signs of wear but it keeps going. I will probably get a backpack in the future. Although I have been downsizing quite a bit, I use to own way too much stuff. The problem is that I like to throw different things than most people, that’s how a collection starts.

Probably, last year they had a better selection at the local store near me. They have a lot of stuff. Since last year they are down to 2 colors now. I own 3 of them, but even when they had more colors they didn’t have the one with a black bottom. I am trying to simplify my tackle system a little. Less colors is easier with choices and makes the tackle bag smaller. Currently have poppers, walking baits, ploppers, buzz baits, spinnerbaits, square bills, wake baits, lipless, frogs, terminal and plastics, a couple jigs and bladed jigs, along with the appropriate trailers. I also have 3 reels loaded with different lines and my tools, clippers and scale, getting heavy now lol. I am good to go though from top to bottom and that all fits in this.

That would be a jackall gavacho frog, they walk amazingly easy and on top of that it’s a popping frog also so it has the best of both worlds. Maybe not the best choice for heavy mats, but light to medium cover there great.

Thank you, I try to take decent pictures. I like showing the baits that I use. Like the frog it’s one of my favorite models, I want a darker one but can’t find them locally.

Took my daughter out for a afternoon session, I told her to tell everyone that she caught the fish she was in the picture in. She told me that she would not lie and say that she caught the fish if she didn’t catch it. All in all a good session, finally caught a decent fish on a doob tube. That was a while to complete, odd sense I really like the color. The tubes are ok at best, I saw the fish when I was working it back next to a tiny mat, completely ignored it. I then lost sight of the fish and decided to pitch it right back where I saw it last, bingo fish on. I thought it was smaller until I hooked it and was like that’s a decent runt lol, I have high standards under 5lbs and it’s small. I also caught my first frog fish of the year, first blow up and hookup. Not huge but he was fiesty and right on the shade line up under a tree where they should be. I was sort of sad that my daughter got skunked but she still had a blast with dad and that’s more important than me catching any fish at all.

Got out this morning and caught 4 dinks, all caught on the choppo 90 in maverick. I didn’t take a picture of one of them but that one was smaller, just unhooked him and let ‘‘em go.

That sounds like a good day to me. Nice fish. Sometimes a different lure or perspective works.

Thank you,I will definitely give that a try. I had a couple hits working the weed line where it drops off butted up to a small pad field. I caught a couple of 3lb ones off the little pocket last year. I also figured that it should be broke up a little bit through there. It seemed like there is a small open spot on the side, where I didn’t get all fouled up as quickly.

I got out this evening for a hour and got skunked like I did last night. I was disappointed last night that the invasive plants at a place I like to fish are running rampant and it’s more choked out than I have ever seen it ?. I tried a weightless senko and as soon as it lands on the water it is buried in weeds. The good news is maybe a frog will be the ticket this year there. I don’t know but I will try to figure it out, between not losing my mind over my finances and how my job just isn’t cutting it anymore. Oh well I have a fishing rod and a fishing license so in all reality life is as good as it can be. It will get better I hope. Just keep pushing.