Todd Brothers Wins Big at Mashpee-Wakeby

Yesterday, the Eastern Division hit Mashpee-Wakeby for its third event of the season! Thirty anglers were met with pretty good conditions, even after the wind kicked up.

The bass in Mashpee-Wakeby see a lot of pressure from tournament anglers, so early on it was shaping up to be a grind, which is common there. Around midday, though, the fish became more active and anglers started making moves up (and down for some) the leaderboard.

It wasn’t an epic day of fishing that sometimes happens there, but it was a good day.

We paid out five spots, three lunker side-pots, and the Double Down…

Pickerel lunker came from the aptly-named Pickerel Cove, a 24.50-incher caught by Chip Dufault; while John Ferreira’s 19.75-inch smallmouth nabbed the smallmouth lunker prize.

There was a tie between Valber Santos and Mike Morcone for overall lunker, with each catching a mondo 20.25 largemouth. Mike’s bass was physically longer on the board, though, so he won the tie-breaker.

Chip got off to a fast start, holding down the lead for a good part of the day. But while the bite picked up for others, Chip struggled to find upgrades. He finished in fifth with 79.50, which was enough to take home the Double Down prize as well.

Mike Morcone’s late-day surge—which included that 20.25 and a smallmouth upgrade caught with about three and a half minutes to go—earned him a fourth-place finish to go along with lunker.

Between 11:24 and 11:58 AM, Neal Rapoza upgraded five times, culling out four of his five bass. Then he topped it off with another upgrade with less than twenty minutes to go. What would have been a seventeenth-place finish with 68.50 turned into 81.75 and third place!

Matthew Conant is always a threat. Like Neal, Matt had a small limit of 61.25, then upgraded twice in six minutes. An hour later, he upgraded two more times in thirteen minutes, moving him up from not even the top ten to second place. But when Neal caught his final bass at 1:40:51, this bumped him up into second place.

For less than two minutes!

Because Matt caught his final upgrade at 1:42.29, which pushed him back up into second place with 82.50. Crazy!

Todd Brothers came all the way from western Massachusetts, and it paid off! Fishing the same general area as Matt, Todd hauled in a mixed bag for 84.75, landing him in first place!

Great job out there, fellas! Congrats!

A big shout-out to our sponsors, as always. Especially Reacton Tackle, Yakrods, Nocqua, and YakAttack for the giveaways!

Thanks to everyone who came out! Our next event is on the mighty Charles River, Sunday, June 14. It’s a weekend of river events, with the Central Division hosting their next event on the Sudbury River the day before.

See you then!


YakAttack LeaderBoard Approved!

As of June 24, 2024, the new YakAttack LeaderBoard is approved for use in Massachussetts Kayak Bassin’ events.

If you have any questions, please let us know.


Lee Kennon Flips Again…and Wins Again

On Saturday, June 15, the Northern Division crossed the border into southern New Hampshire and hit Pawtuckaway Lake for the third event of the season!

Going into the event the anticipation was high. One reason was because it’s MAKB’s first tourney north of the border, so we couldn’t wait to see how it turned out. And secondly, the week prior at the Mountain Road Trading Post tournament on Pawtuckaway, there were some very good bags put up. To everyone’s surprise, however, the lake fished a little tougher than the week before…

But as always a lucky few put up some good numbers!

No stranger to being in the money (or flipping his kayak like he did once again), Lee Kennon clinched the top spot for the second time this season with a 92 inches anchored by a 21.25-inch largemouth!

In second place, and in the hunt for the 2024 Northern Division Angler of the Year title, was Steve Petkevitch, who put up 88.75 inches.

Following up a second-place finish the weekend prior, Ken Wood landed in the money again, taking third place with 84.50 inches.

Sean Renfroe had a solid fourth-place finish with 82.25, and Cory Walker rounded out the top five with 80.75—and this, after getting off the water an hour early by accident!

Event lunker went to Lee with his 21.25 largemouth, while lunker smallmouth was won by Jon Bandi with a 15-incher. Surprisingly no one caught a pickerel, so that lunker pool rolled over the the main lunker pool. Crazy!

Ken also won the Double Down.

It was a super-fun day out there and me and Pat were happy to see that the interest/feedback in fishing up in New Hampshire was great. We’ll definitely be doing it again next season!

As always thank you to all of our sponsors for making this trail possible! And can’t forget to thank Mountain Road Trading Post and Troy Brown for hosting us for a grill-and-chill after the event. We all had a blast and left with full stomachs!

Our next event is on July 27 on Lake Attitash, which should fish well that time of year. But if you can’t wait until then to scratch that competitive itch, we are hosting a Tuesday Night Throwdown tomorrow night at Johnson’s Pond in Groveland! And we’re looking to put another one together between now and the Attitash derby, so keep an eye out!

Check out the full results here.


Andrew Heath Conquers Lake Ashmere

The Western Division held its third event of the season at Lake Ashmere in Hinsdale, MA, on June 8.

Mother Nature gave us some wind and rain to deal with and cooler temps than expected, but we were treated to a pretty good day of fishing. Sixteen anglers entered 129 fish to the event. We paid out four spots, and the results were as follows…

4th – Ethan Bartlett (82.00)
3rd – Richard Keefe (82.25)
2nd – Matthew Conant (86.25)
1st – Andrew Heath (87.75)

Lunker Bass – Kevin Senecal (19.75)
Lunker Pickerel – Justin Gallo (20.50)
Double Down – Jeremey Andrews (69.50)

Check out the full results here.


Lee Kennon Takes Down Singletary

This past Saturday, MAKB Central Division held our third event of the season on Singletary Lake. The day started with nearly perfect weather and surprisingly no boat traffic until after 11 AM. It seemed that we had the lake mostly to ourselves, with only a few fellow paddlers around. Many small fish were seen, but some anglers were fortunate to come across multiple bigger fish and make it pay out for them.

Lee Kennon clinched the first place in his Hobie pedal kayak with five fish measuring an impressive 81.50 inches. Lee could be seen all over the lake at different times, which must have added up to around ten miles! Congratulations, Lee!

Right behind Lee was Todd Brothers, who put up a strong performance and achieved a limit of 80.50, while Domenic Eno secured 3rd place with 79 inches.

John Dicenzo managed to lock down fourth place with 75.50. He recorded the two biggest fish of the tournament: a nice 20.75-incher, which was also the event lunker, and another measuring 20 inches even. Both largemouth.

Mike Morcone took the final payout spot—even though he had to paddle the entire event due to someone stealing his trolling motor—and still brought in five fish totaling 75 inches.

There are a million smallmouth bass in Singletary, but they are all really small. Khoa Dao caught the biggest of biggest of the day, a monster 14-incher, which earned him the smallmouth lunker pool.

The final optional lunker pool, this one for pickerel, went to Jeff Lin, who landed a 21.75. Many anglers reported catching huge pickerel but losing them at the boat.

Cory Walker was the only angler to enter for the Double Down. Not technically a win, but it looks good on paper.

Lastly, we would like to thank all the anglers who came out to fish with us at Singletary and cooperated during the parking predicament at that small launch. It was like a game of parking-lot Jenga, but we managed to park everyone in the lot successfully.

Congratulations to the winners, and we hope to see you at our next event in July at the Sudbury River.

Thank you to our sponsors for your support.

Check out the full results here.


Android Users: Proper Steps to Submit Photos Through Fishing Chaos

PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU FISH OUR EVENTS!

If you fish our events (or any events through Fishing Chaos), please read this article and then check your phone settings. If you have an iPhone, it should be easy to run the test and get things set correctly.

If you own a phone that uses the Android OS (pretty much anything that’s not an iPhone), please read the instructions linked in the article under Android Settings, paying very close attention to what’s in the photos below.

Anglers with Android phones continue to have issues with their submissions uploading with no data. I’ve spoken with Tom at Fishing Chaos, and he pointed out that this is typically because anglers are not following the proper steps when uploading pictures.

You must submit photos in the exact manner shown in the photos below!

If you do not do so, you run the risk of having your fish denied. You could also simply use the in-app camera and skip these steps.

If you have any issues or questions, let us know.


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 MAKB Jerseys Available Now!

MAKB jerseys have been updated and are once again available through Thrasher Sports Apparel!

Order yours here!

You have two options to choose from: a standard MAKB jersey with our sponsor logos, or a custom jersey with whatever logos you wish to put on it. You can mix and match logos as well by including some of our sponsors and some of yours.

You are not obligated to include any MAKB sponsor logos on your jersey. You must leave the MAKB logo, of course.

Instructions are on the order page. If you have any questions, please let us know.


Using the Fishing Chaos App

With our season in full swing, we’re seeing a lot of submissions that do not show EXIF data or submission location accurately. Here are some helpful tips on familiarizing yourself with the Fishing Chaos app and getting your settings correct to avoid submissions being denied due to missing data.

TEST TOURNAMENT

The test tournament is closed for 2024.

TEST YOUR APP SETTINGS

As of today, April 16, 2023, the current version of the Fishing Chaos app is 12.1.17. It is highly recommended that the app and your phone’s operating system is up to date.

To make sure your phone’s settings are correct for use with the app, please open the app and perform the following steps:

1. Click the “hamburger” (i.e. the three horizontal lines) at the top left.
2. Click on your name.
3. Scroll down and click Preferences.
4. Click Test App Settings.

Please note that, since a few iOS updates ago, the Test Camera button isn’t working. A fix is forthcoming.

From there you’ll be able to verify settings for your camera, photo library, and location are correct. If they are not correct, perform the following steps…

IPHONE SETTINGS

If you are fishing our events, or any event that uses the Fishing Chaos app, please make sure you’ve given the app the appropriate access to your photos and location.

If you have an iPhone, go to Settings > Fishing Chaos > Photos, and make sure All Photos is checked off.

Also go under Settings > Privacy > Location Services, then scroll down to Fishing Chaos and make sure that is set to While Using the App. Also make sure Precise Location is on.

To see this in real time, watch the video below (it’s old but still valid)…

ANDROID SETTINGS

If you’re using an Android phone, follow the steps in this document.

Please note that these settings may vary depending on what Android phone you are running, but they should be similar.

It is imperative that you verify these settings before an event, as your phone will sometimes reset your location and permission settings, especially after an operating system update. It is your responsibility to ensure that these settings are accurate. Not doing so could result in your fish being denied.

If you have any questions, please reach out. Thanks!

Article updated on April 16, 2024.


Big Win at the Central Division Opener

Yesterday, forty anglers took to the water for the first MAKB Central Division event at Webster Lake. What started out as a hopeful cold but windless morning, turned into a grinding eight hours for most anglers, with only sixteen anglers turning in measurable fish. On top of that, only two anglers caught limits!

Twenty-four skunks in an event must be a record for MAKB.

Western Division member Gerald Howes took the top spot, with a limit of 81.75 inches. He even managed to cull a fish!

In his second event with MAKB, Donald Anyon secured second place with 68.00 and overall lunker with a 19.50-inch largemouth; while Eastern Division member Matthew Conant finished third, with five fish clocking in at 65.00 inches.

Fourth place went to Kevin Senecal, who had four fish for 63.75; and nabbing Double Down and the last paying spot, fifth place, was Ken Wood with four fish for 62.50.

Smallmouth lunker went to Carl Hartwick, who hauled in three smallmouth, which were tight-lipped for most anglers during this event. Only two other anglers caught a smallie, and only one each. Carl’s 15.75 was big enough to take the pot.

Jeff Lin’s 22.75-inch pickerel was lunker for the event (we do pickerel lunker pools in MAKB, if you didn’t know).

Check out the full results here.

Congrats to all, and thank you to everyone who came out to fish with us. Happy to see new faces and the usual suspects yesterday. Looking forward to seeing everyone at our next event at A-1 on May 11th.