Jmurphy87

Yes, and the 5 mile walk to and from.

Yep, you know it lol. It’s a very slippery slope sort of like the sidewalks that I was walking on today.

I braved the snow on foot to feed the monkey lol, cars in the body shop due to a deer 🦌 in December. 2 jerk baits 2 packs of crappie under spins 3 packs of line through swim bait heads 2 packs treble hooks 2 packs juggle minnows I can’t stand setting around the apartment, snow, cold, and weather doesn’t stop the monkey.

This is what I use for flat side cranks frittside 5 og slim 6, 4 strike king chick magnet crush 75 flat I have caught fish on most of them, all depends on what you want to use. I need to get some spro little John’s to go with the ones I got.

I have been working on wire tying skirts on and building custom color combinations. I strip the old skirts off and build them from the leftover colors and from the skirts that I already have. I am slowly getting better but it is tricky to get down, but hey when you first start off you learn by mistakes and what you observe. This is a odd combination that I made.

That is definitely a good day, I have not ever thought about changing out the hooks on those. I have the small red one I think 1/4, hard to go wrong with a blade bait. I always enjoy seeing your reports this time of year when it’s starting to freeze over up here. I look forward to your next one.

I got some more stuff that I really didn’t need, but the monkey 🙊 said buy, so I did lol. 2 spools of wire for skirts 1 pack of beads for spinnerbaits 2 packs of 4” mayors 1 pack freeloader for a project 2 packs new keitech plastics 1 football jig 2 jackhammers 1 spinner bait 4 packs blades

I will say that the kicker blade looks like it is on backwards to me also. I have been experimenting with blades a lot recently and I want to say that I had this exact thing happen to me also. I swapped my blade direction and have been doing good ever since creating some crazy combos, but hey that’s the fun part.

Yeah the 150 MGL is my main reel on my conquest 844, just reliable and very versatile with its lure weight range. Can not go wrong with the 150 MGL. I will say one of the oddball reels that I have is one of the new abu revo stx, very temperamental but that reel will flat out sling the bait’s out there once you get it dialed in.

That’s a nice setup, I have been eyeballing those reels pretty hard lol. I had a concept c2 left hand that I gave to someone at my job who needed a decent bait caster. I have been thinking about a a2 just never committed lol.

Yeah I am just as baffled as you are by this, I checked the weather report on my phone after a couple helped me take the picture. It said 32 real temp and feels like 22, to me that should be iced guides for sure. But it hasn’t happened yet so I will keep going until the weather freezes my guides off.

You know I can’t honestly answer that question. I figured that they would freeze up but they never did. The only idea that I have is that the water temperature is higher than normal so it is offsetting the cold air temperature, I was fishing shallow water. Normally it is iced over by now but are temperatures have been nuts lately. I normally call it when I can’t keep casting due to frozen guides.

Well my first fish of the year, 32 degrees and with the wind chill it was 22. I have been testing spinner baits that I have been swapping blades out on. The cold kills my fingertips in 20 minutes flat. Luckily there is a propane heater to warm my hands and fingers, and burn the hair off my hands lol. I caught it on a Nichols 1/2 chartreuse and white with brass size 5 front and 6 rear willow blades. Definitely not the biggest or longest pike that I have ever caught but it sure was chunky for its length. This fish should grow into something some day.

Don’t just limit yourself to using it as a crappie rod, I caught my pb on a bfs setup 4.74lbs and it worked great. I caught a lot of fish on it and species. I was amazed by how well it handled decent bass and made the fights more fun. I recommend getting a rod within your budget and give it a shot. Just a word of warning, 7lb braid and wind will drive you nuts. Stay away from overhead limbs on windy days lol. I used 5lb fluorocarbon also and caught plenty of fish in all sorts of cover, just gotta use your head and skills. Good luck on your bfs journey it’s a blast and addicting all at the same time, eventually you will be trying to cast trout magnets and that’s where the rod becomes very important.

Congratulations on a great year, those are some really nice fish. Hard work and dedication is definitely paying off for you, it’s also very impressive for the amount of time that you spent on the water also. I am looking forward to what you do next year.

Controllable, but once you got it I think you got it unfortunately. Hard to describe how the pain feels. I woke up one night while I was in the hospital with horrible chest pain on my left side, woke me up out of a dead sleep. I laid there for 15 minutes trying to figure the pain out and see if it would go away. I decided that it was not going away so I pressed the call button. heart was fine but it was a joint, muscle pain in my rib cage. They found inflammation in my chest. Pain stayed put for 4 hours then shifted to my breastplate for 6 hours and then it snuck up into my left shoulder blade for 4 hours. I just thought it was a cold, I was wrong and finally decided that I couldn’t work through this one unfortunately. Thank you, I appreciate it dearly. At least my job is working with me and willing to give me slack. I was just getting ready to get my own plant when this all happened. Here’s to hoping that this doesn’t screw anything up lol.

I have been absent from the site for a while now, about 4 weeks ago now going onto 5 I started feeling off. I kept going to work dealing with fevers that were 101-102 daily with spikes of 103-104 with Tylenol and Motrin. Then the foot pain started in both feet and it went to my joints, ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders, wrists and finally my hands and fingers. I just thought it was a cold and kept going to work. I would start work hobbling due to feet and knees, as the day went on it only got worse. I fought it as long as I could. Normal stuff at work that was easy was no longer easy, then you get a 3,000lb tool and controlling that was too much. I had to get to the bottom of it once and for all. I finally got admitted to the hospital and they ordered a bunch of blood test and I thought that I had to about be out of blood. I was in the hospital for 4 days with no headway due to the complexities of my case. I had an appointment the day after I got out with a rheumatologist. I went to the appointment and he is thinking that I have still’s disease, going to piggy back off some blood samples that they pulled from me at the hospital. I will find out more information next Tuesday, I have been off work going towards 2 weeks. It’s a real struggle and then on top of all of this my car has to go to the body shop on the 4th of January to get my damage from the deer that I hit repaired. They figure 2 weeks, insurance policy doesn’t cover rentals yay. This is sort of all scary, considering that I am only 36 and watching your mobility and strength leave your body and the doctors can’t even give you a clue. I hope that you all are doing better than me, I hope that you all have a happy holiday season. Sorry I just wanted to give you all a update on why I have not been to active lately.

Well the last time I got out fishing and caught something was November 15th, I caught a species that I had never caught and now have a new pb for walleye now. Caught it on a jerk bait in the river.

They are doing ok for the most part, we got a motor home that we can call home, chilly at night but everything works including the furnace and built in generator. So still technically homeless but things are going a little bit better than they were, still don’t see a end in sight but I keep plugging along. Thanks for asking about how they are doing, I appreciate it.

Nothing special out of me really but at least I didn’t get skunked, getting a jerk bait to work right in the current of the river is hard. But it does work, so far vision 110 has worked the best

Got out for maybe 2 hours total over the past week, I got a pike that was sickly looking. I sort of felt bad for catching him. A real dink on a jerk bait and a smaller dink on a a mini max.

Yeah before I downsized some stuff, I had around 8 of the x-rap, of various sizes. Thanks for the suggestions I will look into some of the smithwick ones.

That’s my guess is that they were just fired up really good today, although it gets pretty good this time of year around here.

Small weight wise, considering some people catch 6-8lb regularly in other parts of the country. For Michigan where I live, it’s probably the largest bass that I have ever saw in person. I will say that the northern strain of bass takes a long time to get there, earlier this year I was talking to a friend who fishes at a local tournament and he said that he hasn’t seen any 5lb fish yet. This is out of a field of 34 boats. I have gotten multiple over 4Lb this year but not like last year with two 4+ pound fish in a day. I just have crazy high standards lol,

They very well might be, I have not been able to confirm it. But the bass today seemed to love it. Sorry that I can’t give you a definitive answer. They were actively feeding today while I was there today, you could watch them chase bait into the shallows to corner them. They were also jumping out of the water pretty good. One of the smallies attacked my square bill just sitting there floating after touchdown on the cast. It was a good time of day to be there, I am extremely grateful that my mom took me to go fishing today. It hasn’t been easy being away from my family for 3 weeks while I was getting the engine replaced in my car, but I should be back on the road by the end of this week and back to my family again. That will be great for sure.