John Murray – ICAST – U.S. Open and Beyond

I made a stop in Phoenix after the U.S. Open and ICAST. Had a great ICAST show working for River2Sea and seeing a lot of new products. I spent two days at the show then went right into practice for the U.S. Open.

Getting back on Lake Mead was just a great experience. Every time I am on that lake I feel like I am home. The fishing was interesting because the water was coming up but I was still catching all my fish pretty deep.

I was catching largemouth and smallmouth mostly on a 1/2-ounce River2Sea Touchdown Football Jig tipped with a little green pumpkin Grasscraw by Wave Worms. They were really on a crawdad bite in that deep water, and I caught them anywhere from 15 to 50 feet of water. I also caught a few drop shottin’ on a little Wave Worms Tiki-Drop which is a little reaper type bait. The smallmouth seemed to like something small. I tried, but I never caught any top water fish, but its gonna happen soon.

I ended up with 12th place and I was happy with my finish. I did lose a couple of good ones that would have moved me way up, but that is the nature of catching those big smallmouth.

After a couple of days in Phoenix, I caught an early flight back to Illinois to see my little son TJ and my wife Amy. Amy came with me to ICAST; which was really nice, but I missed being with TJ the last two weeks and then I’ll have two weeks off.

I will be heading up to Lake Erie for two weeks for two tournaments. The first one is an FLW Everstart tournament on the Buffalo side and then I’ll drive around to the Sandusky side in Ohio and fish the B.A.S.S. Northern Open.

So I am looking forward to catching some more smallmouth – I just rearranged my tackle to fit that and shipped a bunch of stuff out to the farm where all my stuff is. I actually shipped out a butt seat and all the stuff you need for fishing Lake Erie; you know, wind socks and all that good stuff.

So I’m ready to go and get to go back and see my family. It has been a couple of great weeks, but I was definitely ready to get back to our motor home and see everybody.

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