Category: Online Challenges

Ben Hallowell Sets a New Record!

With our switch to a 15-inch minimum in our seasonal Catch ‘Em All Brawls, we assumed the record of 516.50 would never be broken. Why? Because it’s much easier to catch dinks, of course.

Well, we were wrong.

For yesterday’s Spring Brawl, John Ferreira started off hot and looked set on running away with it…until Ben Hallowell began uploading fish.

John and Ben went back and forth for a bit, and then Steve Hedges threw his hat into the ring, but at some point, Ben switched on the afterburners and there was no catching him.

Excluding Ben’s fish, what the rest of the field put up is what we expected things to look like with the new 15-inch minimum, taking around 300 inches to win. Steve, for instance, had 273.75 inches for second place.

But Ben found something special, a pond that was firing at the right time, and he put up a massive 570.25 inches of largemouth bass, besting Steve by 296.50 inches, nearly as much as Steve had on the board!

What a day! Congrats, man!

As mentioned, Steve took second place, while John held onto third with 254.50.

Clearly, the bite was tough for many, and the number dropped significantly from third place on. Lee Kennon took fourth place with 109.50, as well as pickerel lunker.

(Ben actually had pickerel lunker as well, but unfortunately submitted a photo that partially cropped out the fence of the photo, so it was denied.)

Finally, in fifth place was Nate Chagnon with 97.25. And overall lunker went to Brian O’Connor, who dropped a 20.50-inch spring fatty on the board.

Great job, everyone! Good to see a big turnout for this one.

Check out the full results here.

The Summer Brawl goes down on June 30!

FYI: When viewing these events on Fishing Chaos, you only see the submission time. So when you see numerous fish submitted less than a minute apart, this is why. Judges can see the rest of the data.


2024 Schedule Announcement

For those who missed the livestream (or just don’t want to watch it), here is the current 2024 schedule…

DIVISIONAL EVENTS

Apr 6 – Wequaquet Lake (Eastern)
Apr 7 – Webster Lake (Central)
Apr 13 – Lake Cochituate (Northern)
Apr 27 – East Brimfield Lake (Western)
May 11 – A-1 (Central)
May 18 – Snipatuit Pond (Eastern)
May 25 – Onota Lake (Western)
May 25 – Nashua River (Northern)
Jun 1 – Singletary Lake (Central)
Jun 8 – Ashmere Lake (Western)
Jun 15 – Pawtuckaway Lake (Northern)
Jun 29 – Mashpee-Wakeby (Eastern)
Jul 13 – Sudbury River (Central)
Jul 14 – Charles River (Eastern)
Jul 27 – Buel Lake (Western)
Jul 27 – Lake Attitash (Northern)
Aug 10 – Chebacco Lake (Northern)
Aug 24 – Upper/Lower Mill Ponds & Walkers Pond (Eastern)
Aug 31 – Quaboag Pond (Western)
Aug 31 – Whitehall Reservoir (Central)
Sep 7 – Lake Quinsigamond/Flint Pond (Central)
Sep 8 – Billington Sea (Eastern)
Sep 14 – Sudbury River (Northern)
Sep 14–15 – Congamond Lake & The Oxbow (Western)
Sep 28 – Otis Reservoir (Championship)

As you can see, there are very few conflicts between divisions (and none with EKF, if you were wondering), so anyone looking to chase the 2024 MAKB Angler of the Year title should have plenty of opportunity.

A few other things:

Webster Lake, Billington Sea, and the Charles River are on Sunday.

The Pawtuckaway Lake event in New Hampshire is not yet approved. We need to wait until March to submit the permit.

The Western Division is running a two-day event for the season closer. Two days, two separate bodies of water, ten best fish (best five each day).

The championship is on September 28 on Otis Reservoir. Plan ahead!

ONLINE EVENTS

Mar 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Apr 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Apr 21 – The Catch ‘Em All Spring Brawl
May 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Jun 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Jul 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Jun 30 – The Catch ‘Em All Summer Brawl
Aug 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Sep 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Oct 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Oct 20 – The Catch ‘Em All Fall Brawl

TNT SERIES

TBA

COLD WATER SERIES

TBA

KNOCKOUT SERIES

Apr 1–Oct 28


2023 Schedule Reveal

If you missed our Facebook Live schedule reveal, here it is:

EASTERN DIVISION

Apr 1 – Wequaquet Lake (Barnstable)
May 13 – Cook Pond (Fall River)
Jun 10 – Snipatuit Pond (Rochester)
Jul 1 – Charles River (Roadrunner)
Aug 26 – Long Pond (Plymouth)
Sep 16 – South Watuppa Pond (Fall River)

WESTERN DIVISION

Apr 22 – Connecticut River – Oxbow (Easthampton)
May 13 – Lake Rohunta (Athol)
Jun 17 – Onota Lake (Pittsfield)
Jul 22 – The Route 57 Run (Roadrunner)
Aug 26 – Connecticut River – North (Roadrunner)
Sep 23 – Ashmere Lake (Hinsdale)

CENTRAL DIVISION

Apr 15 – Webster Lake (Webster)
May 13 – East/West Waushacum Ponds (Sterling)
Jun 10 – A-1/Stump Pond (Westboro)
Jul 22 – Tully Lake (Athol)
Aug 19 – Flint Pond (Shrewsbury)
Sep 23 – Singletary Lake (Millbury)

NORTHERN DIVISION

Apr 29 – Chebacco Lake (South Hamilton)
May 20 – Lake Cochituate (Natick)
Jun 17 – Sudbury River (Roadrunner)
Jul 8 – Merrimack River (Roadrunner)
Aug 5 – Lake Attitash (Merrimac)
Sep 16 – Nashua River (Roadrunner)

CHAMPIONSHIP

Oct 7 – Mashpee-Wakeby Pond (Mashpee)

ONLINE SERIES

Mar 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Apr 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Apr 16 – The Catch ‘Em All Spring Brawl*
May 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Jun 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Jul 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Jul 16 – The Catch ‘Em All Summer Brawl*
Aug 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Sep 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Oct 1–28 – Monthly Online Challenge
Oct 22 – The Catch ‘Em All Fall Brawl*

*Sunday event

We will also have a few “fun” events, but we’re still working out those details. The Thursday Night Throwdowns will also return, but we won’t have any dates until the weather warms up.

As for the Knockout Series returning, that’s still up in the air. If it does return, it will likely revert back to the original format: Massachusetts only, anglers compete head-to-head on the same body of water. We’ll make a final decision soon…

More details were revealed in the live stream, which you can still view at the link above. Otherwise, you can find all this info on the individual event pages on Fishing Chaos.

If you have any questions, please reach out.


2022 Tournament Updates and Changes

As we enter our seventh season, we have some new opportunities on the horizon, as well as some changes to existing things, which you’ll want to read about below…

SUNDAY EVENTS

Due to the speed at which this sport continues to grow, especially up here in the Northeast, opportunities that just a few years ago were out of reach for many are now well within grasp. As such, we decided to include a handful of Sunday events to de-conflict with some of the other trails that anglers may want to fish this season.

We have three Sunday events lined up, all in the Eastern Division. Those dates are June 5 at Agawam Mill Pond, June 19 at Whitehall Reservoir, and July 24 on the Nashua River. So mark your calendars and don’t show up on Saturday.

Like always, registration for these events will go live at 7 PM the Sunday before. And the pre-fishing deadline will be extended by one day for Sunday events.

DOUBLE DOWN

We’ve added a Double Down option to every Eastern Division event this season. This is an optional winner-takes-all sidepot (less credit card processing fees), which doubles the cost of the entry fee ($50). When registering for an event, you’ll be able to purchase the Double Down ticket. At the end of the event, the angler with the biggest limit who also doubled down wins it all.

TIE-BREAKERS

The options for tie-breakers in kayak fishing are limited. Practical ones, anyway. You can go by the next biggest fish or by the first fish caught. Most people think the former is the fairest, while some think it’s the latter.

Fishing Chaos, our tournament management software, does not account for the next biggest bass when determining lunker. It will do this to determine the overall winner for an event, but not lunker. Instead, it defaults to the first fish caught.

At the end of our championship event last year, Fishing Chaos listed one angler as the winner of the lunker pool, which was a significant amount of money. Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware that the app was limited, and therefore thought he’d won. Two other anglers, however, had caught a bass the same size. Out of those three anglers, the one who caught his big fish last actually won, due to his having the next biggest fish.

We know the angler who thought he’d won was disappointed, as were we because of it.

So over the winter we discussed this and came up with a compromise. Going forward, if there is a tie for lunker, we will determine the winner by the actual length of the fish. If one fish’s tail just touches the 18-inch mark, for instance, while the other comes closer to the 18.25-inch mark, we will award the lunker prize to the angler with the longest bass based on where it lands on the measuring board, not by the last quarter-inch line it touches/crosses.

If we are unable to definitively determine the biggest bass this way, we will go to the next biggest and repeat the process, if necessary, until we determine a winner.

NEW ANGLER OF THE YEAR FORMAT

The first year we did Angler of the Year, it was a points-based format and it didn’t work. Three-quarters of the way through the season, it was clear that the wrong angler was going to win. So we spent some time talking with other directors around the country and we came up with a hybrid format, one that gave points based on the quality of fish caught (top 25 of the season) and where an angler finished in the standings (bonus points for the top 5 anglers).

That format worked well, but we are changing it again this season.

One mistake we think we made that first year was not having any drop-events. So in 2022, the Eastern Division will have three drop-events and the Western Division will have two. For those unfamiliar, drop-events are your worst events of the season. If you fish all ten Eastern Division events, for example, your best seven will determine your Angler of the Year ranking. Your worst three showings will be excluded.

In addition, we will be adopting a simple points-based format, the same format that KBF and EKF uses. For a more detailed breakdown, check out the Angler of the Year page here.

One of Fishing Chaos’s many great features includes a live Angler of the Year leaderboard, which changes as the standings change during a tournament. With this new format, we will be able to utilize this built-in feature, which means everything will update in real time. No more waiting for the manual update, which was very time-consuming.

MONTHLY ONLINE CHALLENGE SERIES

The Monthly Online Challenge Series will begin in April. Anglers will once again be required to choose the week they want to fish when registering. We understand this is a gamble to some extent, not knowing what the conditions will be when signing up if, for instance, you choose Week 4, but…that’s part of the challenge.

By only being able to fish a week, this levels the playing field to some extent, giving all anglers a better chance at winning.

THE CATCH ‘EM ALL BRAWLS

We will continue to do the Catch ‘Em All Brawls. These are our no-limit online events, where anglers can fish a lake of their choosing and catch as many bass over 12 inches as they can! Like last year, you can expect Spring, Summer, and Fall Brawls this season.

THURSDAY NIGHT THROWDOWNS

The Thursday Night Throwdowns will continue this season. Once again limited to the Eastern Division. We don’t have a date on when these will start, but since they do extend into the evening a bit—5 to 9 PM—we will determine the start of the season based on the weather, when the days are longer and the evenings start to warm.

And that’s all we have for now. Expect more updates in the days to come, including new sponsor announcements, rules updates, and an update on the Knockout Series, which is getting an overhaul.

If you have any questions, let us know!


Smart Move Decides October

With only four people registered, there wasn’t a whole lot of action in October’s Monthly Challenge. In fact, since someone else on staff judges the monthly challenges, I kind of forgot about it until about twenty minutes ago!

I did check in on things a few times, though. Eric Graves and Steve Hedges fished Week 1, while Nick Ringgard and Dan Johnson Jr. fished Week 4.

Only five fish were entered in the first week, three from Eric and two from Steve. Eric’s three fish were good for second place and a little bit of money, enough to cover the entry fee and then buy a candy bar.

Nick and Dan had just one fish, both caught at our championship, until the final day of the challenge, where it looks like Nick went out and added four more fish to his total for a small limit. Smart move on his part, as that took first place!

Nick also had lunker for the event. He and Eric actually tied, so the next biggest fish was the tie breaker. Both their biggest three fish tied, though, so the fourth fish broke it. Unfortunately for Eric, he only had three fish, so Nick took the lunker pool—an astronomical sum of $6.60!

There were only four, but great job either way!

Check out the full results here.

We’ll start these up again in April, maybe March if the weather is nice enough.


Shooting for 500

Well, the last Brawl of the season went down today. Fifteen anglers fished this one. It was competitive for a while…and then John Ferreira put the proverbial pedal to the metal.

I don’t have a detailed recap since we all fished different spots, so I’ll go over my day…

I fished a pond down on Cape Cod. I had high hopes going in, but the fish weren’t where I expected them to be. I figured the fish would be offshore, but if they were out there, they were hugging the bottom because I didn’t see much of anything.

Where I found fish was shallow. Real shallow, like a foot or less of water. And they were smallmouth! Crazy. They were relating to wood, in particular a laydown and bushes overhanging the water near grass.

The problem was, there is very little grass in this lake and there was literally one laydown and four or five bushes in the water. Just not enough real estate for me to be competitive. I wish I’d been able to find a secondary pattern.

But the ones I got were good ones, including an 18.5 that was lunker for the event. And I had the best five-fish limit! Not that it matters. Small victories, am I right? Haha.

Anyway, we paid out three spots, plus lunker and pickerel lunker.

Nate Chagnon nabbed pickerel lunker with a 20.75. He also took third with 255.50 inches.

Shawn Dominik was also on Cape Cod, and he was on the right bite, hauling in 358 inches for second place.

I know where John Ferreira fished. He’s been telling about the fall bite at this place, and now I’m a believer. John was hoping to hit 500 inches today, and he came pretty damn close with 492.25! That’s a new Brawl record!

Congrats, fellas! Good job out there!

Check out the final standings here.


Low Numbers, High Limits

The Monthly Online Challenge for August is complete!

Lower numbers for this one since I completely forgot to promote it (a lesson I clearly didn’t learn from), but the twelve anglers that did fish it put up some good numbers.

I wasn’t able to get out and fish much my week, but luck was on my side! Four of my five fish came from the Thursday Night Throwdown on Norton Reservoir and accounted for 74 of my 90.75 inches. Not bad for four hours on the water.

But that was still no match for the mighty Matthew Conant, who put up 97.75, with a 21-inch kicker that was the biggest of the month!

Steve Hedges was just outside the money with a solid 90.25, and Bruce Levy and I put up the month’s other 20-inchers.

Great stuff, guys! Congrats, Matt!

Full results here.


And Still…

This past Saturday we hosted our second Catch ‘Em All Brawl of the year, this one being the Summer Brawl. This is always a tough event for most people, as finding a location that holds a lot of small dumb fish can be tricky.

Some people have a spot, others hope they do. I know multiple spots that are loaded with the right kind of bass, but they seem to never produce on the days of these events. Saturday was no different.

I got my first keeper within a few casts after launching. I was hoping it set the tone. Not long after, I caught a 9- or 10-incher. Unfortunately, that one set the tone! I ended the day with 151.50 inches of keeper bass, and approximately 572 inches of dinks.

That landed me in fourth place. With only 18 anglers registered, though, we’re only paying out two spots and lunker, the latter of which went to Donald Davis, who put up a tank 21.50! Awesome.

We also ran an optional pickerel lunker pool. Out of the ten anglers who opted in, only Derek Brundle submitted one, which was surprising but great for him!

Steve Scott, Mike Morcone, and Domenic Eno were on top all day, each one pacing each other fairly evenly from what I recall seeing.

Mike’s bite seemed to die at some point, though, and in talking to him after, he said he moved from his area to let it rest, only to come back and find multiple bass boats on it. A fatal error on his part, it would seem. His 235 inches landed him in third place, just shy of the money.

Steve Scott has a spot. We all know this. The spot produces, as it doesn’t get heavy fishing pressure. Domenic’s answer to this was to fish a puddle, a less-than-20-acre lake.

I’ve always said, focusing on a smaller body of water for these events is a smart move…

In the end, though, maybe this one was too small. Domenic’s 240.75 just wasn’t enough to beat Steve’s 309.75, giving Steve his third Catch ‘Em All Brawl victory!

Congrats, man! Great job, everyone.

Check out the full results here.

Our Fall Brawl goes down on October 30. Steve is the man to beat, no doubt, so if you plan on taking him down, I’d start scouting new bodies of water now.


Another Record Falls

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.


Fireworks Came a Month Early This Year

July is usually the month of fireworks, but there were plenty in Week 2 of June’s monthly online challenge!

No one entered fish during Week 1, so the game was wide open when Week 2 started. Matt Conant set things off quickly, putting up nearly 90 inches his first day out, but Ken Wood laid a hefty 92 inches on the board on my first day out, overtaking Conant for the lead. He was able to increase that total to 97.50, naively thinking he had a good shot at winning it all.

But with his work week starting on Sundays and Week 2 not ending until Monday evening, Ken gave Matt too much time on the water unopposed, and he retook the lead with 99.75. Joe D’Addeo wasn’t far behind with 95.75, and Derek Brundle and Christopher Alves were making runs with 90.75 and 89 inches, respectively. But when Week 2 ended, Conant still had the lead.

Four anglers took to the water during Week 3, but none could catch the leader. Five more tried in the final week, but last month’s winner Steve Hedges was the only one to break 90 inches. Unfortunately his 91.75 wasn’t enough and Conant wins his second monthly online challenge of the year (he won the first of the season in April).

Matt and Ken tied for lunker, with both of them putting up 20.75-inch tanks. Their second biggest bass determined the tie-breaker, though, with Ken’s 20.50 besting Matt’s 20.25 for the lunker win!

Check out the final results here on Fishing Chaos.