Jmurphy87

Well I got out this morning at 8-11 am trying to beat the heat. First place I stopped wasn’t very good two of my three prime spots were taken, tried for a hour or less. I was going to use a Ned rig today and this place is fairly weedy so you have to choose the right spots. Well onto the next spot my old favorite little pond, maybe six inches of visibility in the water if you are lucky. My plan was still stick to the Ned rig. The first 40 minutes not much happened. I started wading around checking the bottom composition with my feet lol, if I had to guess maybe 8-9 feet deep at the max. There are nice weed less soft bottom banks from 1-5 feet deep around the perimeter one lay down that I mapped with my feet to check for branches to the side that I might snag on, none of those. My first fish was a black bullhead, not too big but still a fish. Next was two tiny bass. Then the last one was the biggest of the day I am guessing in the 13-15 inch range used my rod as a ruler when I got home. Bait was a 1/20oz z man finesse Ned head in green pumpkin, trailer was a finesse TRD in smelt color. Rod zodias 7’2 ml bfs, reel curado bfs xg spooled with 8lb red label. Lure weight around 5-5.5 grams, the plastic is 4 grams on its own lol. No problem casting it where I wanted to. The last bass felt nice on the rod had to steer him away from the lay down but it handed it flawlessly. I think today was a good day caught fish and get to spend time with my son who is going to be 4 months old this week ?

My strategy is to think of where I am going to be fishing. Then I figure out if I want to use specific techniques based off the cover that I will be fishing. The next step is to choose what you are going to use, sometimes downsizing your enthusiasm to take multiple different techniques with you and just focus on doing 1 or maybe 2 really good. You can have a bag full of tricks but if you’re presentation is not correct will they work. Sometimes yes and others no. My strategy lately has been to take three different types of the same plastics and terminal tackle that suits them and go fish them. I normally never change from my first lure that is tied on, this is because I am focusing on my presentation and trying to learn how to make it work and what doesn’t work for that specific one. I use to take 3 3700 trays with me now all I take is a small 8x4 waterproof tray that fits in the front pocket of my waders along with my pliers. It’s a lot nicer not lugging around a heavy pack of stuff I am not going to use lol. I do have 12 3700 trays full of stuff though and a very large backpack absolutely stuffed with soft plastics. There is a lot of little variables that you will learn about how to catch fish when others are not and this is how you really start to learn how to downsize what you need to bring. There is no better feeling than getting to a crowded body of water and patiently waiting for your spots to open up and fishing right behind someone who just left without catching anything and you pick up 2 to 3 fish or more right where they were. Sorry for the long wall of text and good luck.

Nothing special but a few bass on my bfs setup. I hate how the camera angle makes them look huge when they are not ☹️ I like catching big fish but when a smaller one looks big you need to admit that it’s still small and not play it off, enough of my rant lol. Biggest small fish of the day came on my first pitch after I got to the lake second and third came at my third spot. Not horrible for 45 minutes. Caught on a megabass 1/16 secret jig head with a 2.8 inch keitech in sungill weight of 5-5.5 grams.

A assortment of plastics and terminal tackle.

2 grams if I am not mistaken, so of course a little slower fall or less action out of the appendages. That’s my opinion I could be wrong but I figured that I would try to help ?

Well today we have a small bass, largest of the three I caught. I saw a decent one but it was definitely not interested in my offering. More sunfish and a bluegill also, on my lure of choice today. I used a 1/32 jig head with a tiny black and red beetle spin plastics for a trailer. Total weight less than a 1/16 of a ounce, rods only rated down to 3/16 so I didn’t have high expectations. The new curado bfs does really good, it would do better with the correct rod but nobody around here has any in the stores. I think today was a good day of fishing ?

Well no bass for me today while testing my new curado bfs xg on my zodias bfs ml rod. The rod does really well even below it’s 3/16 rating, handles 5 grams just as well as my other reels distance was good, around 3.5 grams it did ok I was happy. I still need to try 1/16 oz on it but I don’t expect much as that’s 3 grams away from the lowest rating. Now onto the fish, using a 13 fishing magic man micro 40 in cosmic perch weighing 3.5 grams we have a decent little sunfish. I tried for the 9 inch bass I saw with a 1/8 oz roadrunner. He looked at it and all the small gills chasing it, checked it out and gave me the I am not having any of that stare lol. It was fun either way ? I didn’t get skunked so that is good. If I am honest I sort of wanted to catch a small bluegill of sorts with my bait caster and I did ?

Well we have small bait monkey and reel monkey ? to thank for this one lol. I have been looking for a reel to go on my zodias ml bfs casting rod and stopped by the local tackle shop last Friday and couldn’t hold off any longer. I was tempted by the new zillion but at this time I didn’t have the money so this is what I got. This shall be interesting ?.

Well on my fishing trip today no fish but I found 10 bobbers a Walmart brand square bill stuck in the pads a owner hook with a old strike king worm. A couple other hooks, cleared tree branches of hanging lines and hooks. A weed less pre rigged crawler harness. The strangest find was while I was in the water wading in the last spot, felt something tangled around my foot. I knew it was line it had a 2 ounce weight with a tiny little jigging spoon of sorts. Don’t know what they were doing there, but hey I am lucky if I know what I am doing lol.

Nothing special or noteworthy tonight, maybe 5 fish in a hour or so. Nothing really picture worthy. Biggest fish maybe 14 if I was lucky. I am starting to develop faith in owner jungle 4/0 flipping hooks though ?didn’t feel like digging my phone out of my pocket with my waders on lol.

Definitely nothing from my hour out this evening. I tried my local park was busy, all my normal good spots were covered unfortunately except one. It was a little bit early in the night for there but I tried anyhow. Only got one strike bouncing my x zone craw of some sorts off the bottom of the pads I was fishing. That put me down one appendage, I don’t think it had it enough to even set the hook. Didn’t feel like it to me but I could be wrong, that was my first mistake. Kept trying a couple of vacant spots nothing. It’s getting dark now I am getting frustrated, second mistake. I decided to make a last ditch effort at one of the hardest spots on the lake to fish in the light of day let alone the dark. Tiny narrow gap that allows you to stand back from a drainage pipe and make a pitch in can’t really cast here not enough room. Stand back from the pipe 6-10 feet make the perfect pitch in the dark lands right in the juice. Can’t see now only feel, this is where I make my third and final mistake sealing the deal on the ?. Feels heavy I can’t tell if I am in the bush dead in front of me or if it’s a fish. It was a fish feel the tension increase. By this time it’s too late feel it come off that’s all she wrote for the night ? Moral of the story keep persevering it’s not over till it is when you get frustrated force yourself to slow down or you might miss your only opportunity for victory. At least I learned that my knowledge of how to get on them at spots other than my preferred ones is still accurate and that’s invaluable ? next time hopefully I can seal the deal, good luck and have a great night.

For me it’s been the year of a Texas rig, was supposed to be the year for jigs but hey it’s a start. Last year it was crank baits.

No real lures passed down, I taught myself pretty much everything I know now. My favorite go to lure is probably a walking bait. At least till tonight, a poor seagull met a untimely end ?didn’t have my pliers on me tried to get the hook out of his foot. How did the seagull pass from a hooked foot you may ask. I will admit it was totally my fault for not having my pliers on me like I should have. While holding it still so it could not peck me or try to fly off and hook me I ended up having to much pressure on it and it couldn’t breathe. I still feel horrible about it ?from this day on my pliers will always be on me when I fish. I do everything I can to make sure everything I catch is released with the utmost care so that it survives and goes on to live a happy healthy life, so it hurts when you know it was 100% your fault for making a bad decision and it cost a living breathing being it’s life. I can only move forward now what’s done is done now onto making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Yeah that lake doesn’t get much boat traffic really, maybe 10 total boats, that’s probably the clearest part of the lake mostly shallow on that end.

Nothing too special today got out from noon till four pm, got maybe 10 total. Definitely nothing big and the bite was slow for the most part. I had a gut feeling they wanted a moving bait bite, so I started out slow with a 3/16 oz green pumpkin weight along with a rage menace 4 inch in summer craw and caught three on that. The biggest small fish came on that, then I switched out to a max scent creature hawg in green pumpkin same bullet weight and caught at least 6 more. The one fish was not super long but was a little chunky for its length. I did see two decent bass cruise by my in the shallows though, I told them I could do with catching them right about now but they wanted no part of that lol. Heading back out with the wife hear in a hour or so we will see. I am going to go with a top water routine for sure, can’t resist.

Yeah I always could, I passed it down to her it’s the one I used last year. A omega z3 or something. To top it all off I got to go swimming with my clothes on to go grab my whopper ploper 110 in bone when my line snapped on the cast lol. A friend of mine gave me a old pinnacle deadbolt classic bait caster ? they couldn’t quite get it down over the years. I don’t know why but I love old cheaper reels people give me to play with. I have fancier newer reels but the older ones hold a special place in my heart for some odd reason. I think I need to replace the line on it same old crusty line that came on it. I just stripped some off the top that looked old and discolored, found line that still looks good and is still fairly strong. Now I need to check the guides on my lews David fritts perfect crank bait speed stick 9 foot extendable rod after reading some reviews lol.

Not much for me, I will just say it I got skunked ?. We got to the park 45 minutes before closing tonight, so not a whole lot of time to fish. I didn’t even bother throwing the waders on and walking down my normal bank. That probably takes me 20 minutes one way if I don’t cast a whole lot. I took everything out of my pockets and just waded in the empty swimming area. Had one miss my whopper plopper 110. That was all the action I saw. They were going nuts further down in the area I normally fish would have been a great top water night if we had more time ?. My wife got one though on a Smokey shad 4 inch rage menace weightless on a 3/0 owner twist lock light wire hook, my preferred hook brand. Probably a little bit over 17 inches long. I am so proud of her ?, her biggest fish of the year so far I think. Now if only I could get her to quit using her zebco reel, yep that’s going to take a minute.

Okay now that I am home on to the rest lol, 5 pop max in various colors, a dog x, 2 shower blows in 125, 2 shower blows in 105, 1 sexy dawg, 1 gunfish 117 and a 1/4 oz finesse jig. I think that I am only missing a few different ones from the local tackle shop and then I will have one of each in the specific brands. Darn you bait monkey ? and the stories of the fish I will catch on each new lure I buy.

More to come later but just wanted to give you guys a heads up if you’re in the Kalamazoo area D&R sports has max scent flat worms in stock probably 50 total packs of black mostly with 15 goby and 15 green pumpkin.

I like working 3rd shift maybe, bad for the monkey though he fills my head with thoughts of what I still need to round out my tackle selection lol. Not too much this trip, assorted white buzz baits to round out the selection of black ones I bought last week. Next we have a couple black top water lures to help balance my tray. Then we have 3 max lbo mega bass jerk baits, been wanting to try these. Last but not least a pack of some of my favorite local stick baits and a interesting color of keitech that I haven’t seen before. Then we have a pic to show them added to there respective trays. I was surprised they still had some leftover flat worms in black maybe 10 packs, probably the color. If you live in the Kalamazoo area D&R sports is where I saw them at 9 am.

When I was at the local tackle shop last Friday they got a shipment in, I have one pack already and don’t drop shot very often never used them yet. The bait monkey couldn’t convince me to buy any lol. Although apparently the owner of the place already had 80 packs set aside for himself.

Congratulations on your new pb that is a really nice fish.

Nothing special but I caught one on a rage tail menace in summer craw with a 3/16 tungsten weight pegged. Was a struggle to find where they were hiding. He ran straight into the salad like I figured he would, this is why I normally use braid don’t want to have to worry about snapping off on a fish. Today was only 10lb invisx. Got a little water in my waders trying to go get him out lol, that was not going to work got deeper and softer quickly. We are both fine and back to doing what we do though.

I took my conquest 843c to a local shop who would send it in for me, this was 1.5 months ago I think. I don’t know I lost track lol, I planned on using that rod for weightless plastics this year. I don’t have hope really that I will be using it this year though. I am just being patient and waiting luckily I have more rods than I truly need, so it’s no big deal but it still hurts a little bit, my first real use of higher end loomis rods has left me thinking. Although I have my 844c to help tide me over though.

I haven’t dropped over $250.00 in the local tackle shop in a few months so I figured I would try some new things lol. 6 packs of local made stick baits garlic flavor, they are really good and soft. 4 packs of rage tail menace. Some owner flipping hooks tungsten weights in 1/8 3/16 some pegs, variety of black buzz baits to fuel my new night fishing obsession lol. 4 of the new berkley stunna jerk baits a couple of sexy dawgs a duo realis pencil 100 a pop max x in bass a buzz plug in rat color. All in all not too bad more of a impulse spree than anything, I find that once I start catching a few on a certain lure I invest in that specific type so that my bases are covered lol.