John Murray – Hot in Arkansas 5th place on the River

I just got here to Lake Wheeler yesterday, we missed the first day of practice, but it was well worth it after finally making a top twelve the other day.

Anyway, it was a great tournament, absolutely the perfect system for us. I found a good area down in Pine Bluff. The first day of practice I had almost 20 pounds on my best five so I mean by eleven o’clock I already knew the area was going to fish!

I had been catching them pretty good on a drop shot so I stuck with it and with the limited amount of time we had, I just figured it was going to be a better situation, to just get there and try to get my keepers each day; it’s not easy, especially when you know you had three hours of fishing time.

I used a 7” Roboworm in Margarita Mutilator on 8-pound fluorocarbon on a Powell Rods Endurance 714MHEF spinning rod and a River2Sea Tungsten Skinny Drop weight. The Skinny Drop helped keep my weight from hanging up as much in the brushpiles I was fishing.

I was lucky enough to catch five the first two days. The last day and the third day I caught a big one finally and had one about 4-12 and I went to the area where I’ve been catching my big ones and I never caught one, so I only had four.

Then the last day I caught three keepers and, had a really slow day, so of course the day they have the cameras in the boat I don’t catch much, I caught like five fish all day, three keepers all day and then we have the drama at the lock.

While I was sitting at that lock yesterday afternoon I was thinking it was gonna be one of the biggest catastrophes in tournament fishing the Top Ten to get disqualified on the last day of weights, but somehow that guy got us through and we all get up there with six minutes late.

Luckily for Denny and those guys there’s enough to get them the win. For me, I just sorta stayed where I was going to stay either way. Anyway, it was just a great week.

Really tired, really worn out. And now I gotta go fish Wheeler, so that’s why I took the day off, haven’t done much today, we drove all day and then I haven’t done much this afternoon. I think it’s more important to get rested up and be fresh out there tomorrow, as fresh as you can be, than going out there tired.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to Wheeler, got somewhere in June. I got 4th, so I feel like I know how to catch a few fish here, I know it’s a lot tougher this year but that’s probably better for me anyway.

www.johnmurrayfishing.com