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.


A Come-from-Behind Victory

Well, that was fun!

We had 22 anglers compete at Oldham today. Our biggest turnout yet! Awesome.

The weather was great, if maybe a bit too calm at times. But it was a good day, and a lot of good-size bass were caught!

At 1 PM, when the standings were turned off, Ken Wood was in first place and Steve Scott was in second. Unfortunately in the last two hours, Steve was bumped down to fifth place (we paid out five spots today). He had a respectable 79 inches.

Both Bruce Levy and Mark Johnson ended up with 83.25 inches, good enough for third and fourth place, respectively (because Bruce had the bigger bass).

Ken Wood got on fish early, had his first bass in the net at 7:03 and a decent limit by 9 AM, with his fifth bass being a smallmouth—at Oldham! (Who the hell put smallies in there? A couple minutes later, he lost another, bigger smallie!) Ken was able to upgrade a few times but didn’t catch anything after 12:35 PM. Sadly, his 83.50 inches was booted out of first place and into second place in the last two hours—by someone who had just two fish at 1 PM!

That someone was Mike Elrick!

Not only did Mike add 51 inches to the board between 1:40 and 2:22 PM to secure the win by over five inches, he had the day’s biggest bass: a fat ol’ 20.50-incher!

Talk about a come-from-behind victory! Awesome job, Mike!

And congrats to everyone else in the top five.

You can see the full results on TourneyX.

Anyway, it was great seeing some new faces out there—Ari , Ben, Jay, and Tom! Great seeing everyone else again, as well.

And thanks for the help, Bruce and Donald, and Peter!

Our next tournament is on September 30, at East/West Monponsett. We’ll be launch from the west side, but you can go under the road and fish east as well. Hope to see you there!


Over 32,000 Inches of Bass!

Okay, folks, here it is, the official results for the first ever Northeast No Limit Showdown!

Once again, sorry for the delay in getting everything judged. The amount of fish submitted exceeded our expectations by quite a bit. We had been judging every submission each day, but once we got behind there was just no way to catch up.

Because a TON of fish were caught!

We had 40 anglers sign up, and 38 of them submitted fish—2,288 fish, to be exact, for a ridiculous grand total of 32,592.50 inches! Crazy.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the top four and lunkers:

1st Place: Chris Marty (4,212.75)
2nd Place: Ken Wood (3,400.75)
3rd Place: Edmar Junior (3,123.00)
4th Place: Tom Kringle (2,741.75)

Lunker Largemouth: Edmar Junior (21.75)
Lunker Smallmouth: Chris Marty (20.00)

Huge congrats to everyone! That was a hell of a tournament! You can check out the final results here on TourneyX.

Next year we’re not sure if we’ll do a month-long tournament. Some were able to remain competitive by fishing very productive bodies of water, but it’s clear that those who can fish more have a big advantage over those who cannot and those who do not have access to lakes/ponds with an abundance of fish.

Not to take anything away from those who fished their butts off this month, of course; we simply think a 2-day or 3-day no limit tournament would prove to be much more competitive and rewarding for all involved.

So, at a minimum, we will do a few short ones next year, and maybe one month-long (but don’t count on it). We will be upping the minimum length to 15 inches as well.

Anyway, thanks to all for signing up! We appreciate it. And thanks to Dwayne Walley and TourneyX for making this kind of tournament possible!

To those who placed, we will send payments in a few hours to the PayPal address through which you paid your entry fee. If you would like it sent elsewhere, please contact Ken.


Tough Bite on Cook

Today 19 of us competed at Cook Pond in Fall River. This was our biggest turnout to date!

Unseasonably cold weather and water temps greeted us, which of course made for a tough bite. Only five limits were caught.

We had two lunker pools for this one, smallmouth and largemouth.

Bruce Levy walked away with $150 for the biggest smallmouth: a 14.25-incher. Looking at his photos later, though, Ken Wood realized that he actually tied Bruce for lunker, but he mistakenly thought his smallie was just 13 inches, so he never even checked! I’m sure he won’t make that mistake again.

Lunker largemouth went to newcomer Kevin Amaral Jr. He had a solid—and seriously fat—18.50.

We’d hoped to pay out five spots today, but one angler didn’t show, so we paid out four.

Fourth place went to Kevin Amaral, who was also fishing with us for the first time. He had a respectable 69.75 inches.

Bruce Levy had a good day today. Not only did he get $75 too much for lunker smallmouth, he also got another envelope full of cash for placing third with 74.25 inches.

Ken Wood caught three bass by 8 AM, but didn’t get another bite until almost eleven. He fished half the pond after that with no more bites, so he pulled out a frog and threw a Hail Mary cast into a small field of sparse pads. Almost immediately he caught his fifth bass. That was 12:31. He caught four more—three of them upgrades—on the frog and in the same set of pads between then and 1:15. Pretty good run for such a small area.

Four of those five bass he caught on the frog were enough to put him into first place with 76.25—though it was short-lived. At 2:13 PM a fish was submitted that bumped him down to second…

That fish was submitted by Chris Diranian, who bested Ken by .75 inches for an even 77. Great job, Chris!

And congrats to everyone else! Excellent job.

Check out the full results here on TourneyX.

It was great time as always, guys. Great seeing everyone again, and a pleasure seeing some new faces: Kevin and Kevin Jr., Lee, and Rj. Hope to see you at another one soon!

Speaking of another one…

Our next event is on September 16 at Oldham Pond in Pembroke. It’s a great little pond, so it should be a good day!


Limits! Limits! Limits!

Twelve of us fished the Charles River today, and all of us caught limits! That’s the first time everyone has caught a limit in one of our events.

We launched from four different areas along the river, between Millis and Dover.

Steve Scott landed the day’s lunker: a hefty 20-incher with a funky three-fingered tail.

In the last 45 minutes, Valber Santos put two on the board that bumped him up to 78.75 inches and into third place, where he stayed.

Donald Davis did the exact same thing: two last-hour fish that pushed him into second place with 80.50 inches.

First place was secured by 11 AM, and Allan Seniuk took home the cash and trophy with an even 81 inches.

See the full results here on TourneyX.

Congrats again, everyone! Glad you came out, hope to see you at the next one: Cook Pond on September 2!

And great meeting you, Jesse and Chris!


Wet and Windy

It was a wet one today! We had 18 anglers. Lots of fish were caught, and a number of good ones.

Chris Diranian hauled in the tourney lunker—a 19.75—on the magical Pats swimbait in the last hour.

Ken Wood was in second at noon, but in the final two hours he was bumped down to fourth. He caught a ton of fish—a good 15 for the Northeast No Limit Showdown—and ended up with 83 inches.

Jacob Schur took third with a solid 87.50 inches.

Not satisfied with just the biggest fish, Chris Diranian also nabbed second place with 88.25 inches.

Edmar Junior made a rare appearance today and it paid off. His 89.50 inches topped the field. Congrats, man!

And everyone else. It was wet and windy, but a good day nonetheless. Except for Brett Krill. Brett had a bad day (see his submission on TourneyX—YOWCH!). Hope that finger heals quickly, bud.

See the full results here on TourneyX.

Appreciate everyone coming out! Our next tournament is on the Charles River (Medfield stretch) on August 19. Hope to see you there!


The Northeast No Limit Showdown: A Few Things…

To those who signed up for the Northeast No Limit Showdown, thank you! This is the first time we’ve ever done anything like this, so we appreciate you giving it a shot. Should be a great event!

That said, while we don’t anticipate any issues, please be patient if there are any bumps in the road.

To help make sure everything runs smoothly, though, we want to mention a few things:

All bass submitted must be at least 12 inches.

You may use the identifier available on TourneyX (and posted below), or you may just add the code—PWT—to an existing identifier, such as KBF’s.

Hawg Troughs only! No other measuring device is allowed in this event.

The standings page on TourneyX will only show a maximum of 12 submissions; we have set it to show eight for this event. So it will show each angler’s biggest eight fish submitted and an overall length of all fish submitted.

Ken Wood is judging this event and also competing in it. Obviously that creates a conflict of interest. So he is going to post on our Facebook group page (in a photo album) the TourneyX photo of every fish he submits, along with each individual fish’s length and a total length of all fish submitted. This will be the judge’s photo, which looks like this:

Doing this, allowing everyone to verify his submissions, should hopefully create enough transparency to eliminate that conflict of interest.

We had 40 anglers sign up, so we’re paying out four spots and a total of $800, which comes out to:

1st – $400
2nd – $200
3rd – $120
4th – $80

We had two optional lunker pools, and they will payout as follows:

Largemouth – $115
Smallmouth: $70

If you have any questions, please let us know.

Good luck!


Bridgewater Triangle Bassin’

No Sasquatch or UFO sightings in the Bridgewater Triangle tonight, and for some of us, not many bass sightings, either.

We had 16 anglers for our annual night tournament at Lake Nippenicket. It was a tough bite for a lot of us—which is a common theme there—especially after it got dark. But as always a few people found some good fish.

The biggest of the night went 20.75 inches, caught by Valber Santos! Nice fish, man.

A few key fish in the last hour bumped Donald Davis into fourth place. He had a solid 70.75.

Bruce Levy was poised for a record fourth win early on, but it wasn’t meant to be this time. A respectable 73.50 inches earned him third place.

At our last tournament, Michael Curreri submitted a blurry photo of a big bass, over 20 inches, which would have bumped him up into second place. Unfortunately, because the entire photo was blurry, it had to be DQ’d. Not something we liked doing at all.

Well, he redeemed himself tonight, catching two fish—including a solid 18—in the last hour to secure second place! No blurry photos this time! He had 75 inches total.

Anchored by that 20.75-inch lunker, Valber hauled in 77.50 inches of bass and walked away with the win! Nice job, man!

Congrats again to the four of you, and thanks, everyone, for coming out! Much appreciated. Wish the bite had been better.


Photo taken the moment Ken’s head exploded from lack of sleep.

Check out the full results here.

Our next tournament is on August 5, at Chauncy Lake in Westboro! Register here on TourneyX. Hope to see you there.


Big Win At Winni

BIG congrats to Mark Johnson, who came out on top today in our very first KBF Trail Event on Lake Winnipesaukee. A $690 payday! Nice.

Thomas Mee (aka Tom Kringle) took second, and Jason Gardner placed third. Mark and Jason previously qualified for the KBF National Championship, so their qualifying slots rolled down to Matt McGee and Frank Kulig.

We did a split lunker pool for largemouth and smallmouth. Ken Wood got the biggest largemouth of the day (18.75) and Mike Elrick got the biggest smallie (18.50).

Congrats again, everyone! We really appreciate you coming out. Let’s do it again next year!

On a smaller lake.

Special thanks to Mike Sales at MGC Fishing Equipment and Supplies for the giveaway loot and swag!

Read on for a more detailed write-up courtesy of KBF’s Joe Haubenreich:

KBF TRAIL, WINNIPESAUKEE RANKINGS & REWARDS are now posted on the KBF Calendar Event web page.

23 bass yakkers whacked ’em on Winnepesaukee today. KBF was delighted by the turnout for this first New England event. Many thanks to Ken Wood and Mass Kayak Bassin for pulling this event together and making sure it came off without a hitch.

Mark Johnson posted 83.75 inches of bass on the LOWRANCE Leader Board to seize first place, which came with $690 and 100 KBF AOY Points. Mark’s performance merited a qualification to the 2018 KBF National Championship but he qualified earlier this year, so that slot rolled to Matt Mcgee of Maine, who turned in a respectable 81 inches today.

Thomas Mee was two inches behind Mark. At second place, his winnings came to $345 and 97 KBF AOY Points. Thomas qualified to compete for $100K next March on Kentucky Lake…which might be about the time he’s ready to take a break from Connecticut’s lingering wintry weather.

Like Mark, Jason Gardner (ME) is already Paris-bound. Taking third place, he pockets $115 in winnings plus 94 KBF AOY Points. The slot he would have taken went, instead, on past Mike Elrick (MA, 79.25″, 5th place) to Frank Kulig (MA, 78.50″, 6th place).

We appreciate all who turned out for this TRAIL Series Tournament. We’re looking forward to our return next year. Congratulations to those who fished their way to the top!

Click here for Rankings & Rewards.

Click here Photos & Details.


Register for the Lake Winnipesaukee KBF Trail Event

Okay, folks, the registration and tournament info pages for the KBF Trail event we’re hosting on Lake Winnipesaukee on July 8 are live!

Lake Winnipesaukee KBF Trail Event

This event is open to KBF members and non-members, though non-members pay an additional $25 admin surcharge on top of the $50 entry fee. This surcharge can be used toward a KBF membership within one week of the end of the tournament.

At 30 anglers, AOY points will be awarded to all participants who are KBF members at the time of the event, and at least five National Championship slots will be awarded. Payouts go to 10% of the field (not a 10% payout overall, as the graphic kind of suggests), and the minimum payout for first place is $1,000! It goes up from there. If we reach 100 anglers (or possibly 50), NuCanoe will award to the winner a brand new NuCanoe Pursuit. Expect additional prizes and raffles as well.

The host venue is Funspot in Laconia (579 Endicott Street North). We will meet there in the parking lot on July 8 at 5 AM for a brief Captain’s Meeting, and then again at 5 PM (inside, second level party room) for check-in and the awards ceremony.

Please register as early as you can. The more anglers who sign up early, the more it encourages others to do so as well. And I would suggest finding lodging as soon as possible, as this is event is very close to July 4 and places to stay nearest to Winnipesaukee will likely become harder to find the closer we get to July.

For all the tournament info you need, click here. To register, you can do so here on TourneyX.

If you have any questions, let me know!