Hampton, New Jersey

Day 3 of hunting for the elusive musky. Took a few days off to catch up on sleep and be with family, but I'm back on the grind. Today started off with a rather expensive mistake. I forgot to close my tackle box, and when I put it behind my seat, a bunch of lures fell out. I lost 2 $40 glide baits and 2 double bucktails. Again was fishing the lily edge, going out a bit deeper today, but no musky sightings. However, I did catch this massive pickerel. I thought it was a small musky for a few seconds, but it is my pb by 4", as well as an NJ master angler fish. Other than that, my dad caught a 1/4lb bass on a dropshot which was on my 40lb test striper rod. Heading back tomorrow and Thursday. The new moon is on Thursday, and moonrise is at 5:15am, so if the articles I read are correct,the 30 minutes before moonrise on Thursday should be my best chance to catch a fish.

Got back out on the lake at 5 am today. Unlike yesterday, there was not a musky in sight the entire day. I must've went 3 hours without a single bite, and even when I switched from musky only lures to some spinnerbaits, it was very slow. I landed this nice 19.5" bass, which is around 4lbs. I also lost 2 pickerel at my kayak, since I tried hand grabbing them. Those 3 fish were the only action I had for 6 hours. Yesterday, I saw at least 4 different musky suning themselves on the surface, but today they were all gone. I suspect the weather played a large part in this. Both days I saw musky were completely overcast with scattered showers. Today wasn't hot, but the sun was shining bright. Will probably return after the weekend and hope for some good musky weather🤞 #CatchKing

I messed up my figure 8😭. Tuesday was an insane multi species day that ended in heartbreak. I started off trying to catch a bowfin in my kayak at a completely different lake.however, the entire lake was choked with lily that came 2 feet out of the water, so thick I couldn't paddle. I was throwing a frog, and I ended up catching 2 bullfrogs, which is another species that will apparently eat the topwater frog. Anyways, I headed over to little swartswood to try and catch some bass and pickerel. I had very little action on the frog, and after a few hours, I decided to bust out the panfish setup to just catch some fish. After fishing the edge of the pads and catching 2 bluegill, I hooked into something that gave a much harder fight. It turned out to be a 2lb bass that ate the little 1" swimbait. He was barely hooked right on the lip, but I got him in. I was throwing the panfish setup for a bit more until I looked under my kayak and saw a 40" musky swim right underneath. I was totally caught off guard, and I only had my frog on. This was the first musky I've actually seen, so it was good to know they actually exist. For the rest of the day, I decided to try and catch a musky. The largest spinner I had was my size 5 mepps, so thsts what I went with. I was then drifting casting to the edge of the pads and I caught a bullhead on the spinner. This is the first catfish I've caught in years and it came on a spinner of all things. I proceeded to catch 2 more cats and a pickerel drifting the weeds until I reached theboat ramp. I decided to fish a bit longer since i still had some time before dark, so i continued drifting the shore. That's when I had my first follow. A very small musky, probably about 2ft long was following my spinner. I tried to do a figure 8 but I had too much line out, which caused the spinner to stop, and the musky swam off. After that, there was no more action by anything, so I called it quits. It was a rather successful day, but at the same time, it felt like a failure. I will be catching a musky by the end of this year.

Heyyyyyyyy!!!! Frist one for 2023!!!!! YES!!

Last two of the day!!

Little guy at the frist after work fishing spot!

Stumbled across this little pond and i was getting some monster hits of my frog jig but couldn't land any switch over to a wacky worm and got this little guy. Going to the next spot but more to come form this pond!!!

We went for a little fishing after some major storms disnt catch anything besides this guy. Still had a great time!!!