Monthly archives: July, 2021

Thursday Night Throwdown

July 30, 2021 0 Comment

The first Thursday Night Throwdown took place last night on West Monponsett in Halifax. Fourteen anglers competed in this one.

Chef John Ferreira got there first, and shortly after he fired up the portable grill and tossed on some burgers and dogs. He even seasoned the burgers. Fancy!

Much appreciated, man!

Strong winds greeted us at the ramp and didn’t let up. In fact, I’m certain it got worse. But the rain held off aside from a few sprinkles, which was good.

Chris LaCourse took the early lead with two fish, then I believe Bruce Levy overtook him sometime after. Matthew Conant put up the first big fish of the night, tossing a 19 on the board. At some point I took the lead from Bruce, dropping him down to second, but as always things change…

Despite the lower entry fees, which means lower payouts, we are going to keep the same payout scale as our normal events. I think that is in line with what these events are intended to be: fun and rewarding.

So we paid out three spots, lunker and pickerel lunker…

Only two pickerel were entered, a 16.75 caught by yours truly, and a 23.25 hauled in by Matthew Conant. Unfortunately for me, Matt opted in on that lunker pool and took the pot.

Kelvin Nova and Bruce Levy tied for third place, with Kelvin winning the tie-breaker via a bigger bass—a 19.50—which just so happened to be tournament lunker as well. That was also a tie with Mike Morcone’s big fish, but Kelvin next biggest fish decided that tie-breaker.

Historically, I’ve never done well at this lake, so it felt good to hold the lead for most of the tournament, even though I wasn’t sitting on an impressive limit or anything. With a little over an hour left, though, Conant put a 14 on the board that pushed him ahead of me by 1.75 inches.

I continued to catch fish, but was unable to cull out my smallest and catch the local legend, so this one goes to Matt, 48.50 to 50.25. Congrats, man!

Great job everyone! This was fun. A bit more stressful as well, like speed-round fishing. I dug it. Good idea, Nate!

Happy to see some new faces as well…

Torrence Davis of YouTube’s excellent Bubba Bass Anglers joined us for the first time. Good seeing you again, man!

And we had our youngest competitor ever in Jackson Nardi, Christopher Nardi’s son, who is 11 years old. And in fine apprentice-becomes-the-master form, Jackson took the win in the Father vs. Son match! Great job, young man.

Check the results here on Fishing Chaos.

We’ll do this again in two weeks.

Another Record Falls

July 29, 2021 0 Comment

July’s Monthly Online Challenge is in the books, and Joseph Daddeo came out on top with the biggest limit yet in the series: 100.5 inches! Joe’s massive limit was anchored by two over 20 inches, rounded out with three over 19 inches.

Not far behind was Matthew Conant, who is no stranger to the top the top of the leaderboard. Matt put up 99 inches.

The top four anglers had over 90 inches, in fact, and five bass topped the 20-inch mark, the biggest being Joe’s 21.50!

Great job, gentlemen!

The final results can be found here on Fishing Chaos.

Traveling Route 57 to the Championship

July 25, 2021 0 Comment

After a couple venue changes thanks to the US Army Corps of Engineers and Mother Nature, Nelson and I slapped together a list of ponds that are located pretty closely to each other on or near Route 57 up da’ ‘Shires…

And The Route 57 Run was born!

Noyes Pond, Twining Pond, Upper and Lower Spectacle Ponds, West Lake, York Pond, and Thousand Acre Pond hosted thirteen anglers today under bluebird skies and a setting full moon.

It ended up being a relatively close contest, even between the different waters. And while everyone put fish on the board, two camps emerged: anglers with rounded limits and no large fish, and anglers with large fish and nibblers filling limits.

I had a mediocre day, so I’m skipping my own recap. Meh.

Dan Johnson (Thousand Acre Pond) and Jerry Howes (Twining Pond) tied for third place at 73.75, with Jerry breaking the tie and claiming it solely behind a 19.25-inch largemouth. Nice job, Jerry!

Nelson da Costa (West Lake) hit for 77.50 and scored the lunker with a 20.25-inch watermelon of a fish. Just massive. Congrats to Nelson (and also congrats to his parents, who are celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary today)!

Our winner today—fishing one of the creepiest, Friday the 13th, Silver Lake-esque western MA waters (Lower Spectacle)—was Steve Hedges, who knocked in 78.50 inches of largemouth bass while avoiding demonic possession, cryptids, and all matter of supernatural evils. Steve made the long trek from out east for one reason: to finish in the top three and qualify for the MAKB Championship at the end of the season. He did that and more! Congrats to him and glad to see he survived the experience.

If you want to take a peak at the full standings, you can do so here.

Our next Western Division event is scheduled for a pike-laden body of water, Cheshire Reservoir, on August 28th.

In the meantime, to scratch your collective competitive itch, there are a couple tourneys lined up: MAKB’s Catch ‘Em All Summer Brawl online event is a go for July 31 at waters across the state, and on August 14, Lake Winnipesaukee hosts the next Elite Kayak Fishing tournament.

And don’t forget our MAKB monthly online challenges! Get into them if you can.

Congrats again to all our winners!

Deja Vu in the Bridgewater Triangle

July 11, 2021 0 Comment

Yesterday, twenty anglers fished the fifth Eastern Division event of the season on Lake Nippenicket. This was our second time at the Nip this season, after having to relocate an earlier event due to high winds.

That previous event was won by Valber Santos in the final hour, when he put an 18.75 on the board, bumping Bruce Levy, who’d had the lead most of the day, down to second.

Both anglers, I’m sure, went into this second event with a lot of confidence. But they weren’t the only ones fishing…

I went out last Thursday, and the bite was tough as hell. Others I’d spoke to who’d also fished that day had the same experience. The tropical storm system that rolled through on Friday had them in a funk the day before, and that seemed to carry over to Saturday as well.

I did not fish this event, but the bite was tough down in Brewster where I was fishing, and the final standings for the Nip mirrors my experience, with only six anglers catching limits, and many of those fish on the smaller side.

Some good ones were caught, though, including a 22-inch beast hauled in by Joe Fournier. I’ve fished many events there where a fish that big wasn’t big enough for lunker at the Nip (I caught a 6.4 there once and it was not the biggest fish of the tournament), but luckily for Joe his fish was the biggest of the day, by 2.5 inches!

The Nip doesn’t only have big bass, it has monster pickerel as well, which Patrick Brown learned when he nailed a long 24.50! Almost big enough for a state pin, definitely big enough for pickerel lunker.

In his second event of the year, Donald Davis found himself in the money once again, putting up 64.75 and notching a fifth place finish in his storied MAKB career. And once again, doing so out of the old sit-in! =)

Joshua Jackson also found himself in the money for the second time this year, landing in fourth place again, this time with 66.75!

Adding more cash to his pickerel winnings, Patrick Brown pulled off a third-place finish with 71.25!

I checked the standings at some point in the morning and Bruce had a commanding lead, around 20 inches if I recall correctly, maybe more. He looked poised to get a little redemption after the last event there.

Typically I turn the standings off two hours prior to an event ending, but I forgot to set an alarm this time, and I didn’t even think about it until the tournament was nearly over. At 1:44, I checked the standings and reigning Angler of the Year Joseph Daddeo had closed the gap considerably, sitting at 73 inches, just .75 behind Bruce.

So I turned the standings off, thinking it’d add a little drama to the event if Joe could pull off a last-minute upset.

Shortly after 2 PM, all the way down on Cape Cod, I heard Bruce cursing, because four minutes after I turned off the standings, Joe put up a fish that pushed him into the lead, adding another 3.25 inches to his final score (76.25) and giving him the win!

Déjà vu for Bruce, but still another solid finish on an already great season.

Great job to everyone who got out there and put up fish. The Nip can be tough on any day and the weather definitely didn’t help this time.

Congrats to everyone in the money! Awesome job. =) And thanks to Don and Bruce for running this one!

Check out the full standings here.