Monthly archives: October, 2017

A Season End Grind

Seventeen anglers closed out our final regular-season tournament of the year, which took place on a foggy morning at Lake Maspenock. In a few words: it was a grind. Super-tough bite for everyone. Only two limits were caught!

With just 28.75, Donald Davis took fourth place. He also caught one of two smallmouth on the day (Ken Wood caught the other), with his being the bigger of the two, which was good enough to win the lunker smallmouth pool. With a last-minute 18.50-incher, Ari Stonehill propelled himself into third place while also taking the lunker largemouth crown.

This year’s Knockout Series started with 32 anglers and ended with two going head to head at this event: Ken Wood and Shawn Renes. Fitting, then, that both of them would battle it out on this day for both their final Knockout Series match (see a future post to see who won) and this tournament.

Both found fish early, but it was Ken who was heading for victory until Shawn caught a late-inning lunker and bumped Ken down to second place with 72.25 inches. Shawn bested him with a solid 74.50.


Dammit, Jim, I’m a fisherman, not a photographer!

You can check out the complete results here.

Thanks for coming, everyone! As of right now, this is our final tournament of the year. If weather permits, we will hold another. Maybe more. If not, we’ll see you next year!


A Lesson in Irony

Well, for the second year in a row, our No Limit tournament turned out to be a lesson in irony. Only one angler caught more than five fish today!

It was a struggle.

Fish under 12 inches were abundant, but finding fish over that was a challenge for all 21 of us. Out of 61 fish submitted, only six were over 14 inches long. Awful.

Four of those six were big ones, though. Michael Andreasen dragged in a 19.50 early. With so many small fish being caught, it was assumed that Michael’s fish would be the lunker for the day—until Ken Wood caught a 20-inch fatty! Certainly that would hold as the day’s lunker, right? Nope. Shawn Renes caught himself a beastly 21.50! And then Peter Arruda was like, “Pffft,” and hauled in a 21.75, which ended up taking the top lunker spot of the day.

Current Angler of the Year leader, Bruce Levy, struggled for most of the day, but he finally landed four in the last two hours, which was enough to secure fifth place with 54.25 inches.

Only four anglers caught more than four fish. One of them was Mark Johnson, who took fourth place with five 12-inch slobs that went 61.25.

Ken Wood didn’t catch his fifth fish until 2:30, and five was all he caught. Luckily for him, one of those fiver was a 20-incher, which was enough to hoist him into third place.

Shawn Renes has fished with us two times so far, and both times he’s come in second place. He had five fish—four dinks and a tank—that went 71.25.

(Shawn and Ken Wood also fished the first half of their Knockout Series finale today. Based on each of their three biggest, Shawn is leading Ken 47.25 to 45.25. They will fish again at our next tournament in two weeks and crown a winner!)

Craig Page hadn’t fished with us yet this year, and hasn’t fished much at all in fact, but that didn’t stop him from getting the “W” with six fish totaling 75.50. That sixth fish made all the difference! Congrats, Craig!

And congrats to everyone else! You had to work hard for this one.


Yeah, I may have Photoshopped my head into the picture

You can see the full results here.

Anyway, great seeing everyone again. Good to meet you, Gerard!

Our next tournament is at Lake Maspenock (aka North Pond) in Hopkinton on October 28. This will be our last regular-season tourney of the year (we’ll do a few more if the weather’s nice enough).

You can register for that one here.

See you in two weeks!


Big Turnout and Big Fish

So we had 23 anglers today! Our biggest turnout to date. And on a relatively crappy day, too. Pretty awesome!

It rained off and on throughout the day, heavily for a bit. Ken Wood’s wife warned him of a storm that was clobbering Taunton and then heading our way—torrential downpours, thunder, lightning, and hail! Luckily it passed just west of us. Dodged a bullet there.

Anyway, we expected a tough bite today, and it was for some, but lots of big fish were caught, including four over 20 inches. Jesse Phipps hauled in the day’s biggest bass, a 21.25-inch tank. Congrats!

Ken Wood managed to put together a decent limit by 9 AM. He got two small upgrades after that, but couldn’t find any bigger fish. His 73.25 inches was enough to take fifth place (we paid out five spots today).

Coming in fourth place, with 78 inches, was none other than Bruce Levy. This is the seventh time Bruce has placed in the money this year, not including his two lunker wins.

Jesse Brady landed one of the four biggest fish of the day—a solid 20 even—which helped him reach 80.75 inches and secure third place.

Two people found more than one really good fish today. One of them was Lee Kennon, who pulled in 87.25 inches of bass. That was good enough for second.

Like Mike Elrick did last tournament, today someone made some late-day moves and muscled his way into first place. That was Domenic Eno, who, at 2:24 PM, flipped a 20.50 slob into the yak. That propelled him to the top with 88.25 inches! Congrats, dude!

And to everyone else, as always!

(No pictures today. Sorry!)

Check out the full results on TourneyX.

Thanks again for coming out, guys. Really appreciate it. Great seeing some new faces out there, too!

We have two regular-season events left this year. The next one is on October 14 at Lake Rico in Taunton. This is our annual NO LIMIT event. Every fish over 12 inches counts! Bring your senkos! Haha.

If interested, check out this link for more info.