Jmurphy87

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.

Nothing special pic of my smallest big fish of my 2 hours of fishing, caught three smaller ones on a weightless bluegrass senko, biggest on came on a strawberry and cream weightless senko. I also caught another smaller one on a trench hawg in Alabama bug color. Then my daughter caught one on a Ned rig using a rabid bait in mud bug color. All in all a decent evening, tried teaching the wife and daughter how to use a bait caster at the same time lol. They tried but struggled, I told them it takes time and patience, wife made me put her zebco back on her rod and my daughter went back to her spinning reel. I am proud of them for trying ? I didn’t make it easy on them either, both weightless plastics wife had a spicy beaver and daughter had a trench hawg. The rods were right though a medium fast action.

Nothing special but pip squeak saved me from a skunk lol, on the full size abrogast buzz plug in the black color.

Nice fish.

The fish is nothing special size wise, although the special part is that it’s my first swim bait fish. Jackal gantrel jr in bluegill spawn color, well if we don’t count the turtle I caught on it before lol. That’s not a fish though anyhow. I woke up a little bit early before work and was setting on my deck starring at it and I just couldn’t shake the feeling to go throw it in the lake. Working 3rd shift and having a 3 month old makes it hard to go fishing, but I still manage to get it in and my son is so worth it. I am hopeful that he will grow up to like fishing also but that will be his choice when he gets older.

My 6’11 poison adrena mh spinning rod runs 20lb power pro max quatro on my vanford 2500. I use it with everything basically, I feel like it works for me on that setup so I use it wherever I go. Then my lews pro ti has 30 lb sunline plasma braid on it I use that for top water jigs worms. I mainly let the cover decide what I am going to bring with me though.

This weekend was decent started off Friday night at the river after dropping my son off to go to his dads for the weekend with a skunk, lol I don’t really catch much here but I still try. Saturday was my day that I got to use my 7’2 zodias bfs ml with my 20 met xg with 10 lb invisx mostly used a watermelon lemon laminate senko weightless caught about 5 fish in a hour in a half nothing big really but a fish is a fish, biggest was probably 13 if I was lucky. The night kept going with me introducing my daughter to night fishing ? she had a jitterbug and I went with a silent superspook in black shore minnow I caught three she didn’t have any luck unfortunately ?biggest of the night 13 inches. Sunday was a day of rage lizard in watermelon red good for two dinks then I swapped to a trick worm in scuppernong green good for 3 then swapped to a black loon lane changer and proceeded to catch 8-10 while walking down the shoreline with my waders biggest fish 16 inches. Then to top it off wife got one on a spicy beaver in sun Gill weightless Texas rig mostly all dinks but better than a stinky skunk lol.