John Murray
Familiar Erie Feeling

Photo: BassFan John Murray's practice strategy at Buffalo will be to stick and move – mark each big fish, then relocate.

On day 2 of the wind-shortened tournament he caught the biggest limit of smallmouths he'd ever weighed in, and made the Top 12 cut in 4th. Then he walloped them again the final day and improved one spot to finish 3rd.

Predictably, he's thrilled to be going back next week for the second-to-last Elite Series event of the season.

"I feel good about it again," he said. "I love to fish for smallmouths. When I saw the schedule for this year I was most looking forward to fishing on Falcon, but this was second. There aren't too many places I'd want to drive across the country to fish, but Erie's one of them."

Not Fishing History

Given such a huge expanse of water, one might think the best place to start is where you found them last time. Murray disagrees.

"I think my areas from last year won't be that great, so I'll start off looking at places I haven't been to," he said. "There are big, well-known reef areas to start on and you just cover the water. You might fish all day eliminating water and then you'll have maybe 30 minutes where you locate what you need. You only need two or three spots with the right fish on them in this tournament to do well.

"It takes a lot of electronics work and you have to pay attention and know what you're looking at," he added. "You can spend almost 2 days not finding anything, and then in half a day you'll find what you'll use (in the tournament). It's the same as hitting every laydown in a lake – here you hit every reef you can."

So his overall practice plan is to stick and move – a typical strategy for a Great Lakes search. He doesn't stay in any one place too long, and if he catches a big one, he'll mark his GPS and move on.

"I may mark a spot if there are a lot of fish too, even if I'm catching small ones," he noted. "This place is so big – it's a chore to try to find the key spots in this huge area. It seems easy sitting on the bank, but when you get out there, it's like 'uh-oh.'

"Another thing here is that they may move the next day, so you have to be open-minded. There's nothing really holding them except schools of gobies and smelt that they follow. They move up and down the water column, as well as horizontally."

Murray differed significantly from the rest of the Buffalo Top 5 last year, because he targeted suspended fish that were suspended about 20 feet above structure. Others may have hooked a few suspenders here and there, but they mainly worked the bottom.

He encountered better quality from those suspenders.

"It's not like fishing for spots or largemouths," he noted. "Wind current makes them hug the bottom, but personally I'd rather see it dead calm. They can get a little finicky then, but I have confidence to stick with it – more than some guys who leave too quick. But it might not matter as much here since if you get (a bait) in front of them they'll hit it.

"A lot of guys will use baitcast rods and heavy line here, and they'll bite it. But you need to find 4-pounders and up. If you're catching 3 1/4- to 3 1/2-pounders you won't get to fish the last day."

More Weight To Win

"To do well it'll just boil down to good old hard work, and finding a couple little shoals that have the right fish on them," Murray said of next week's Buffalo event.

Photo: BassFan Murray plans to bring plenty of Berkley Gulp! – the baits were hot at Buffalo last year, and dominated the Detroit River FLW Tour a few weeks ago.

"I'll have five dropshot rods and one for a tube, and a bunch of Berkley Gulp!," he added. "But you can catch them on a lot of baits. The main thing is finding the right-sized fish."

He plans to fish deep again this year, but noted that some competitors did well fishing shallow water last time.

"I doubt it'll be a consistent shallow bite, but if we get clouds and wind some guys might try it. That's real conditions-oriented. You could bust a really big bag shallow, but it'd take the right conditions to do it. The deep fish seem to bite no matter what happens.

"I'll have areas both far and close (to the launch site) located that I feel confident in," he said. "We're going at the time of year when the winds are the most calm, but if it's blowing 15 to 20 mph, you're drifting. There's no way to be on the trolling motor then. It just carries you away. But I have a couple banks I drifted last year where I caught 4-pounders."

Notable

> Last year day 2 was cancelled due to high winds. BASS had at first said fishing the Niagara River was "plan B," but then instead decided to just cancel the day. Murray "doesn't care" whether it's an option or not, but has found out that it again could be put in play as a last-ditch possibility. "(BASS) said that the river is a last option, but they really don't want the tournament on the river," he noted. "They might go if they had to cancel 2 days. I'm not going to look there. I'm so far down in points I'm just fishing for the money. I'm so far out of the Classic that I'm not going to try to protect myself or anything. I'm in it to win it." He's 67th in the Bassmaster Angler of the Year points.

> Practice days can be pretty long this time of year that far north. But again, the wind is in control. "How long I stay out in practice depends on the wind," he said. "Early in the day is usually nice, but if it gets up in the afternoon I'll come in. There's no sense destroying the boat and your equipment and wearing yourself out."