Monthly archives: June, 2019

First MAKB Victory

June 29, 2019 0 Comment

I’m exhausted. And depressed. Who picked this damn lake?

Anyway, twenty-three of us fished Long Pond in Freetown/Lakeville today. Eleven anglers had limits. Bruce, who is laid up with a back injury, judged today, and said mid-lake seemed to be the most productive area.

Whatever the case, five anglers put enough fish on the board to walk away with some cash. =)

We ran an optional pickerel lunker pool today, and [a cheater] took home close to $200 for his 23-inch snot rocket.

There was a tie for overall lunker between Paulo DeMorais and Kevin Amaral Jr. Per KBF rules, ties are broken by upload time. Can’t say I’m a big fan of this rule (think we’ll change it next year), but this time it went to Paulo, who caught his fish early while Kevin caught his in the last hour.

But hey, Kevin’s 18.75 was a seven-inch upgrade, bumping him up six places to fifth with 73.75. Not bad!

Lee Kennon also surged up the leader board in the final hours, finding a sweet spot in a small cove and putting a number of upgrades on the board. His 75 inches of bass was good enough for fourth place.

Mike Elrick took a page out of John Ferreira’s playbook and pulled off a third-place finish by tossing a ned rig in weeds. I can’t figure out how to make this technique work, but it certainly does. Mike had 75.75 inches. Great job, man!

Also putting 75.75 inches on the board, with a bigger fish being the tie breaker—Bruno Casagrande! Good enough for second place.

Anyone who pays attention to the various local fishing groups knows that Paulo DeMorais is a hell of a fisherman. He’s been in the money twice already this year, and today makes three and his first MAKB victory! Paulo won by four inches, with 79.75. Congrats, sir. Well done!

Full results here.

As always, thanks for coming out. We had a new angler, Chris Nardi, join us today, along with Chris Catucci. Don’t think Nardi has a Facebook account, but if you see this, Chris, it was great meeting you (should have said this at the end, but I was distracted as always). Hope to see you at another one! You too, Catucci.

Thanks to Bruce for judging and giving Sarah a well-deserved break.

Our next event is the Three Lake Throwdown. Random draw “mystery” event, though you’ll get one of three lakes—Norton Reservoir, Lake Sabbatia, or Lake Nippenicket. With plenty of room for all, registration will open TOMORROW night.

Experience Pays Off

June 15, 2019 0 Comment

Thirty-three anglers fished Lake Cochituate today, our second biggest turnout ever, and our biggest turnout for a single-lake event (we had 37 fish our Lake Rico/Neponset Reservoir season opener).

It was a great day to fish, with a little wind that only really kicked up at the end of the day, as we all sat there and watched those renting kayaks struggle against the gusts and waves. Pretty irresponsible of that company to continue renting to people in that kind of wind.

Anyway, the wind didn’t really affect us much, and it was to some of our backs on the way in, so that was nice for a change.

We paid out five spots and also had optional buy-ins for pickerel and trout lunker. Most only opted in for the pickerel pool, which was smart because no trout were caught and the six of us who tried got our money back.

Pickerel lunker went to Jake Schur, who had a 21.75.

Domenicio Enos took an early lead and it seemed like he was going to pull off his third win of the year, but as the day progressed other anglers started putting fish on the board and things changed.

Coming in fifth place and, I believe, placing in the money for the first time ever—Bruno Casagrande! He had 71.25. Great job, man!

Just ahead of him with an even 72 inches, Paulo DeMorais took fourth place, finishing in the money for the second tournament in a row. Awesome.

At noon, when I turned off the standings, Shawn Renes, always a contender, was leading and seemed poised to win it all. Two other anglers had different plans, though, and Shawn finished in third place with a respectable 73.50.

John Ferreira has been making waves in MAKB and KBF this year, currently sitting in third place for KBF’s Regional Angler of the Year title. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that he finished second today (unless you’re John, who was surprised). He had 76.75, less than an inch away from the win.

And taking the win for the first time ever—Steve Scott! Growing up fishing the lake paid off big time today. Not only did Steve win with a solid 77.25 inches, that total was anchored by a hefty 19-incher, which was also lunker for the day! Congrats on your first win, bro!

Full results can be found here.

Thanks for coming out, everyone, especially Steve Napolitano and George Valentine, who were fishing with us for the first time. Hope you both make it out to another one soon.

Once again, thanks to Sarah for judging, and thanks to Donald Davis, Bruce Levy, and Mike Elrick for all the help in the morning.

Our next event will be at Long Pond in Lakeville on June 29. We will be implementing a new early launch format at this one, so be on the lookout for those details soon.

Green Giants!

June 1, 2019 0 Comment

Another one down!

We hit Wequaquet Lake with a full field of 24 anglers today, and while no one knocked it out of the park, we all scored fish. Like our Cook Pond event, one or two decent upgrades for more than half the field would have been an express pass to the top of the leader board.

The weather was partly sunny and the wind wasn’t an issue at all. The water temps were 64 to 66 degrees, which is ridiculous for June 1. Some fish were still on beds! Unreal.

Anyway, we like to mix it up from time to time and offer an optional lunker pool for a non-bass species—pickerel, crappie, etc. Today we did a pike/pickerel pool. If no one caught a pike, it would default to the biggest pickerel. Well, no one caught a pike. But get this…

Eight anglers caught a state-pin-sized pickerel over 25 inches today. That’s right, EIGHT of us caught a monster pickerel big enough for a state pin. Ridiculous!

The biggest of those eight was Allan Seniuk’s 25.75-inch snot rocket. With some slight adjustments, it probably would have touched 26 inches. Congrats, man, and to anyone else who’s submitting their catch for a pin.

With smallmouth present, we had an optional smallie lunker pool. No giants were caught, but Domenicio Enos’s 15.75 got the job done well enough. Cha-ching!

He also hauled in a 19.50-inch largemouth, which, due to an unfortunate deduction given to another angler, also gave him lunker largemouth (it would have been a tie otherwise, and he would have lost the tie-breaker). Cha-ching!

As I mentioned previously, if any angler down to probably sixteenth place (68.50 inches) caught one or two solid upgrades, they’d have risen to the top or very close to it. Just 2.5 inches separated first place with fifth place, the lowest paying spot.

Troy Brown took that fifth spot with 76.25. Way to go, bud!

I spoke with Lee Kennon late in the day after he’d put a solid 17.50 on the board. He expected a top ten finish, but the lower half. He was wrong. That late-day 4.5-inch upgrade bumped him up into the fourth-place spot with 76.50! A nice surprise, I’m sure.

After a second-place finish at Cook Pond last week, Peter Arruda still had some tricks up his sleeve, resulting in 76.75 inches of bass and a third-place finish. Great job!

An inch ahead of Peter, Paulo DeMorais took second place with a solid sack of largemouth, one small upgrade away from the top. Great stuff, man!

And then there was first…

With 79 inches and his second first-place finish of the year—Domenicio Enos! CHA-CHING! Hell of a job out there, sir! Congrats again.

Click here for the full results.

Nearly 200 fish were submitted today, and that doesn’t count all the fish we didn’t measure/submit. Most of us went home empty-handed, but speaking for myself, I had a great time.

Well, except when I donated a spinning rod to the Goddess of the Lake. That part kind of sucked. Really sucked, actually.

Thank you, Sarah, for judging all those fish! And thanks to Donald for the help with payouts and everyone who helped make the unloading and loading go as smoothly as possible. We lucked out in that I don’t think the Cape Cod season is in full swing just yet. Can’t complain about that.

And no one got yelled at! At least, I don’t think anyone did. That’s a rare fine day on that lake. Haha.

Anyway, fellas, thanks for coming out! Our next event is in two weeks, June 15, on Lake Cochituate. We have two permits for this one, two different launches, allowing for 40 anglers total, and I’m working on getting access to another launch. I’ll probably open up registration for this one early, as we’ll have plenty of room.