John Murray's Blog

Just returned from a two week vacation to my wife’s family farm in Illinois. The great thing about farms, is that they have farm ponds, and thats where I spent a lot of time! Their pond has a great bass population, and not much fishing pressure, so the catching was good. I only took a topwater frog and dropshot, but that was plenty to catch those bass. Powell Rods shipped my father-in-law a 703, and that was perfect, thanks Keith! The best lesson I learned was that I tend to fish too fast sometimes. Those pond bass really liked things slowed down, especially in the heat of the day. Now I can start concentrating on Roosevelt for the FLW event. With no slot limit, it should be a great event, and the city of Payson is really gearing up for it. Next Tuesday, Sept 7, I’ll be at Anglers Marine in San Diego, should be a fun night. I’ll post some Roosevelt reports as soon as I get up there!

Not much happening this summer. Did fish a night derby with superstar Tommy J, and we finished 3rd with 12lbs, great time! I’ve had some guide trips on Pleasant, and the fishing has been spotty, but the fish are as healthy as I’ve ever seen them when they do bite. I’ll be doing some trips to Roosevelt to prepare for the FLW in September. Many of us will be attending the Payson bass celebration on September 18th, so if you are close, come on up to cool Payson, should be fun! I will also be at the FINS seminar in San Diego, on September 7th, a cookout and bass talk- sounds good! I’ll keep you posted on Roosevelt conditions as we get closer, stay cool!!!

Decided last week to go to Temple Bar, and prefish Mead for a couple days. Driving in to Temple Bar is always exciting, seeing the lake, it feels like home. Lake was glass for the first couple hours, so I ran quite a bit to check water levels and grass beds, but fishing was tough. My plan was to sleep on the boat and cover as much water as possible. About 1pm, the wind started, 20-30mph out of the south. I had stopped at Echo Bay to get more ice, because it was about 107 deg!! Riding out into the Overton, it felt like a hair dryer. I decided to head back to Temple to fish out of the wind. I guess at age 45, my staying on the lake idea, wasn’t as cool as it was at age 25, so by 3pm, I loaded up and headed back to Phoenix! The sum total for the trip was about 8hrs in the truck, and 6hrs on the boat, and very few bites! I’ll head back up next week for a real practice after Icast. If any of you are attending Icast, I will be at the Lobina Lures booth, so stop by and say hi. After that we’ll have the US Open on Lake Mead. This will be the first Open back in July since 1996, I got 2nd that year and hope to improve on that this year. I’ll keep you posted…

I’m back home, and ready to forget another Clarks Hill derby! I’m 0 for 5 in finishes on that lake, I really thought this was gonna be my redemption. The first day I pulled up on my starting shoal, and the whole thing was covered with fish boiling on herring! Problem was, they were all striped bass and whites. After catching over 20 of those , I finally caught a small keeper on a swimbait. I then went back towards the launch area, where I thought I could catch an easy limit on dropshot. Not so much, I worked hard in that area to catch 2 more keepers, and lost a nice 3lber. The last few hours, I ran some points that had bass swimming around them, but only caught one more keeper on a carolina rig. 4 bass for 5lbs, was not a good start, so the next day, I completely changed areas. In the first 10 casts on the second day, I caught a 2.5lber on a pencil popper, next stop a 2lber on a carolina rig, and next stop, broke off a 2.5lber trying to lift it in the boat on 6lb test! (DUMB)! Then the rain started, so I ran way up-lake to some bedding bluegills that had some big bass swimming around them. I caught two keepers there, but the big ones were gone. Then ran some good point with carolina rigs and dropshots, finished out my limit and culled some, but the big ones never showed. Even if I boated everything that bit, I don’t think I would have made the cut! Now it’s home with Amy and TJ, getting ready for Kentucky lake. My rig is at my friend Tom’s house in Nashville, so I’ll fly back in 10 days and try to get my revenge on that lake,( last two years missed 10 Grand on Kentucky by 1oz, both years!!!) Sorry for the lack of blogging last week, but you really didn’t miss much!!!

Change in plans, TJ got even more sick, so I didn’t make the Fred Hall show in Long Beach. Thanks to the great guys at Ardent reels (Tim), they completely understood my priorities, and someday I will make it up to them. I did fish on Pleasant on Tuesday, and fishing is really picking up, jerkbaits and sight-fishing worked for us. Picked up my new boat from Cabelas today- what an awesome boat- z521 Ranger, 250 proxs Merc, Lowrance HD8′s, and a Power-pole! Can’t wait to get it out on the Delta. Liquid Wraps in Phoenix has it now putting my new “Ranger” wrap on it for Saturday. Tonight I’m watching the (much better TJ), while Amy has class. The boat should be ready Sat morning, so until then I’ll be loading up on Delta and Clear Lake lures, and packing all my raingear!!