Category: Tournament Results

And the 2021 Eastern Division Angler of the Year is…

February 18, 2022 0 Comment

Winning the Angler of the Year title is about consistency. It’s a slow burn. Winning obviously doesn’t hurt, but performing on a high level over the course of the season is what brings home the Angler of the Year trophy. A single misstep, as we saw in the Western Division, is often the death knell on an angler’s chances of taking home that title.

The Eastern Division Angler of the Year race was anyone’s game through the first three events. Ken Wood sat at the top after two events, but Mike Morcone, Valber Santos, and Bruce Levy were nipping at his heels. Mike won the second event of the season, while Valber won the third.

After a poor showing at that third event, Ken dropped from the top and Mike and Bruce Levy took the top two spots, respectively.

Our hybrid Angler of the Year format was designed to keep the race competitive all season long. An angler “running away with it” isn’t easy under this format, which is based on an anglers top twenty-five biggest bass over the course of the season, plus bonus points for top-five finishes (five for first, four for second, and so forth).

In years past, the Angler of the Year’s total points were the result of a number of quality bass, but with only one or two of them being over twenty inches. It’s not easy catching giants during tournaments, especially when sharing the water—which is usually a small body of water around here—with two dozen other anglers.

But sometimes an angler stumbles upon something special…

At our Nashua River event, Bruce Levy did just that, dropping the hammer on not only one giant, but five of them! Four of those bass were twenty inches or longer, with his smallest going 19.25 inches. His total that day was a massive 102.5 inches, which planted him firmly atop the Angler of the Year standings, casting a big shadow over the rest of the field!

The historical stats don’t exist to back this up, but it’s highly likely that this is the biggest limit ever caught during a single-day kayak bass fishing tournament in the state, if not all of New England. At a minimum, it is the biggest limit caught during a Massachusetts Kayak Bassin’ event, and without a doubt will remain there on top for a very long time.

While a few anglers still had opportunities to dethrone Bruce during the remaining events, this single performance made that very difficult. He followed it up with just two additional second-place finishes over six events, but he also added a number of quality fish to his yearly total, including one more over twenty inches, ultimately bringing his points total to 463.75.

So without further ado, your 2021 Eastern Division Angler of the Year…


Bruce Levy, 2021 Eastern Division Angler of the Year

Congrats on an EPIC season, one unlikely to be duplicated any time soon!

And the 2021 Western Division Angler of the Year is…

February 17, 2022 0 Comment

Massachusetts Kayak Bassin’ has grown to be the biggest, most successful kayak bass fishing series in Massachusetts, if not all of New England. Much of our success in 2021 was owed to Jigs and Bigs co-host Shawn Dominik and Nelson da Costa, both of whom stepped up to run our new Western Division.

Fittingly, these two anglers battled it out all season over on the western side of the state.

With just seven events in their inaugural season, becoming the first-ever Western Division Angler of the Year wasn’t easy. There was little margin for error. With our hybrid Angler of the Year format—your biggest twenty fish over the course of the season, bonus points for top-five finishes—a single misstep could have put either of them out of contention.

Shawn Dominik made his plans known right out the gate, at the first event of the season, by taking home the victory with a solid 84 inches, nearly seven inches over second place. Nelson wasn’t far behind in fourth place.

Two events later, Nelson took the top spot.

Over the course of the season, Shawn notched two victories, one second-place finish, and two thirds. While Nelson only won a single event, he scored two seconds, a third, and two fourth-place finishes.

Our Angler of the Year format rewards performance, but it also rewards the quality of fish an angler catches during the season. The bigger, the better!

Out of the seven regular-season Western Division events, Shawn caught the biggest bass in two events, while Nelson caught lunker in three. Each angler had accumulated twenty bonus points for top-five finishes. They were neck and neck all season long, and everything came down to the wire at our championship event. But while Shawn held an eight-and-a-half point lead in the standings, Nelson’s smallest six bass on the season were 14-inchers…and he’d done very well pre-fishing.

Within the first hour, Shawn put up his first bass. It wasn’t big enough to add to his Angler of the Year total, but it was one fish to Nelson’s zero. It would remain that way for the next four hours, when Shawn began adding to his total. At the end of it all, nothing would change for Nelson, who suffered that dreaded misstep, giving Shawn a well-deserved fifth place for the championship and firmly secured his place atop the Western Division Angler of the Year standings!


Shawn Dominik, 2021 Western Division Angler of the Year

Congratulations on a great season! There can never be another inaugural Western Division Angler of the Year champion!

Smart Move Decides October

November 8, 2021 0 Comment

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.

Boobs on Top!

November 7, 2021 0 Comment

Unless we get a day of unseasonably warm weather, yesterday will likely have been the last MAKB event of the season.

Each year, after the regular season is over, we run at least one fun event, try a different format and such. Yesterday, we went with two: a mystery lake, randomly chosen Friday evening, and a team format.

We chose the lake from a list of fifteen, with some smaller locations being combined for a split lake event. Two of the smaller lakes on the list were A-1 and Chauncy Lake, which were chosen. We’ve fished with a full field at A-1 before, but once the weeds come up, the fishable portion of the lake shrinks quite a bit, so we paired it with Chauncy for this event.

Seven anglers fished at each location, one from each team, and with the temperature being about 28 degrees at the start of the tournament, fishing was tough for most. Thankfully, the “light and variable” wind forecasted was accurate for a change, so after the first hour or two, it wasn’t so bad. Overall, a really nice day out there.

We introduced the Double Down option for this one, which is a winner-takes-all side pot. We’ll be doing that at each live event next season.

We also had our standard optional pickerel lunker pool, which was won by Valber Santos, with a 21.75.

Gerard Elias took down the lunker bass prize, with a healthy 18.75.

As mentioned, this was a team event. Instead of the normal five-fish limit, we went with eight for this one, making it a bit more challenging, which it was. Only two teams filled a limit, but if we’d had the traditional five-fish limit, only three teams would have achieved that.

Second and third place would have swapped, though.

This time, however, third went to team Shake and Bake, consisting of John Ferreira and Nate Chagnon, who put up six bass for 95 inches.

The second-place team, The Green Machine, comprised Shawn Dominik and Scott Rhodes. They had a full limit that went for 111.50.

Promising your kids that they could name your team probably isn’t wise, as Ray Figueroa and I ended up on team Banana Boobs, courtesy of my goofball kids. I feel like they’re telling me I need to hit the gym. But a promise is a promise, and we took that name to the top with 123.75!

I was also fortunate enough to put up the biggest five-fish limit and take home the Double Down prize with 84.75.

Great job, everyone! Had a great time out there.

Check out the full results and the rest of the “very professional” team names here.

If this is our final event of 2021, it’s been a great season. Looking forward to next year, and hopefully we can finally pull off some ice-fishing events before the start of the 2022 season.

Shooting for 500

October 30, 2021 0 Comment

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.

There’s a New King in Town

October 28, 2021 0 Comment

This past Saturday, Massachusetts Kayak Bassin’ closed out the regular season with our first-ever championship! With few big bodies of water to choose from in the state, and even fewer somewhat central to both the eastern and western divisions, we settled on Webster Lake, which is most famous for having the longest name of any geographic feature in the country.

No, not Webster Lake; the tongue-twisting Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg, which roughly translates to: “Whoever named this lake clearly had a drinking problem.”

Leading up to the event, pre-fishing reports indicated it would be a tough bite. A few people did well, like Nelson da Costa and John Ferreira, the latter of whom apparently put up close to ninety inches the Wednesday before the event.

For the most part, though, people struggled, and the cold front that dropped in Friday night didn’t do us any favors.

But that didn’t deter anyone, as we had nearly a full field of thirty-seven out of thirty-nine qualified anglers show up tournament morning!

Ramp-cooked breakfast sandwiches were provided by John Ferreira up north and Shawn Dominik down south, and I’m not saying I’d like them to do that at every event, but…I wouldn’t complain if they did. Either way, thanks, fellas!

At 7:45 AM, we hit the water. Lines in at 8 AM.

Heading across the lake, Valber Santos and I found that we were heading toward the same weedy cove. Gerard Elias had shot past us, then doubled back. As we passed each other, he said, “Overshot my spot.”

Valber and I laughed, and then a few minutes later realized we’d done the same damn thing. When we finally got to the weedy cove, Gerard was there, and now, over the course of the winter, we’re going to learn how to read maps better.

Just entering the cove, from the shore end of a point, I tossed out a ned rig and quickly hooked up with my first fish—a solid 17.25. I was pumped! But I wouldn’t catch another fish until 2:14 PM.

John Ferreira took a quick lead with three fish. A few other anglers had fish on the board, but only one apiece, if I recall correctly. John had a limit not long after and got to work culling. It looked like the rest of us were fishing for second.

I didn’t pay much attention to the standings for a good part of the day since I wasn’t catching fish. At one point, though, anglers began figuring things out and making moves, and John’s lead began to shrink.

When the standings went offline, Joseph Daddeo had taken the lead, but anglers were still putting the pieces together and fish on the board…

For this event, we paid out five spots, event lunker, smallmouth lunker, and pickerel lunker. The angler with the biggest bass also took home the Old Glory Outdoors Big Bass Bonus prize. The top five anglers also won a gift certificate to YakAttack!

There was a two-way tie for pickerel lunker, with both Ari Stonehill and Nick Ringgard putting up a 22.50-incher. Because we don’t measure every pickerel we catch, we can’t go by the next biggest pickerel for a tie-breaker, so they split the $250 pot.

John Ferreira nabbed an 18-inch smallmouth just four minutes after lines in, which would remain the biggest smallie of the day.

For the overall event lunker, we had a three-way tie between Steve Hedges, Joseph Daddeo, and Derek Brundle, all of whom caught an 18.50-inch largemouth. For bass tie-breakers, we go by the next biggest fish, which was Derek Brundle’s 16-incher, giving him the pot and the Old Glory Outdoors prize pack—which included tackle from 6th Sense Fishing, Googan Squad, Fresh Baitz, Z-Man Fishing Products and others, as well as a rod from Ark Fishing and some hats and stickers.

Like many anglers, Shawn Dominik struggled out there. With just a 12.5-incher on the board for most of the day, he made some moves that proved fruitful in the last few hours, catching seven bass that ultimately pushed him from the back of the pack all the way up into fifth place with 71.50 inches.

Though leading for a good portion of the day, culling throughout, John’s offshore bite changed and, unfortunately, he was unable to make the necessary adjustments. However, his is 73.50 was still enough for 4th place and a solid payday.

Scott Rhodes had a bit of luck on his side, getting blown off course on the way to his first spot and finding a small piece of structure that was holding fish in 25 feet of water. When his first spot produced just one fish, he moved back to what he’d seen earlier and quickly put a good one on the board. He would stay there for the rest of the day, grinding out a very respectable 74.50-inch bag on a tough day.

With no pre-fishing, and having never fished the lake before, I launched south and zig-zagged all across the lake, all the way up into the creek by the northern ramp, with only one fish to show for it in the first six hours.

On my way back south, I stopped on the humps out in the middle basin, which are obviously a community hole. I’d fished them pretty good earlier in the day, but couldn’t get a bite. On my way back through, though, I changed my Megabass Vision 110 from a trout color to a perch color, and immediately started catching fish.

I caught at least twenty smallmouth out there in those last hours, and by my math, my 76.25 had surpassed what Joe had when the standings went offline at 3 PM. But Joe is a stud and never quits…

While I spent most of my day fishing offshore, Joe stayed shallow, focusing on two marinas, targeting largemouth feeding on bait, of which there was plenty. My late-day run did have Joe’s 3 PM total beat by an inch, but at 3:12, Joe laid a 15.75—a 2.5-inch upgrade—on the board, which bumped him up into first place and sealed the deal on becoming the very first Massachusetts Kayak Bassin’ Champion!

Congrats, buddy! Very happy for you. Well-deserved!

And congrats to the rest of the anglers in the top, as well to anyone who caught fight this day. It was tough out there, even for John, who was making it look easy in the morning.

Check out the full standings here over on Fishing Chaos.

It’s been a great season, and I hope next year is even better. Thanks to Shawn and Nelson for taking the reins and running the Western Division, and a big shout-out to all the anglers who fished it. It can only grow from here! And to the rest of the staff—Donald Davis, Bruce Levy, John Ferreira, and Kevin Amaral—thank you!

Our “annual” awards banquet is scheduled for March 19, 2020. We checked out the venue today, and it should be a good time. We’ll have three years of trophies to award at this one! So make sure you mark it on your calendars, especially if you won an event in 2019, 2020, or 2021 (seriously, I don’t want to have to mail a dang trophy).

Thanks, everyone, and congrats again to the winners! Great job this season!

Fifth Round Knockout!

October 24, 2021 0 Comment

The 2021 Massachusetts Kayak Bassin’ Knockout Series has come to an end!

We started with forty-eight anglers in April and over the course of four rounds and forty-five matches, just three remained: Shawn Dominik, Greg Krasnowiecki, and Valber Santos!

These three anglers had their championship match this past Saturday at Webster Lake, along with thirty-seven others who were fishing the MAKB Championship. The bite was tough for them, like it was for many fishing that day.

While the MAKB Championship lasted until 4 PM, the Knockout Series Championship ended at 1 PM, and when all was said and done, just three small fish were submitted, one from each angler.

Valber would only catch one fish all day, a 9.5-inch nibbler. Not a win, but still a solid payday after a great run to the championship.

Like Valber, Shawn struggled Saturday, but he did end up finding the fish in the MAKB Championship. Unfortunately for him, he was two minutes too late for Knockout Series Championship. His first fish of the day, a 12.50, came at 8:40 AM. He wouldn’t catch a second fish until 1:02 PM, a 15-incher that would have crowned him the Knockout Series Champion, but was just after the buzzer.

So with just a 13.50-inch smallmouth, the 2021 Knockout Series Champion is…

Greg Krasnowiecki!

Maybe not the kind of match they hoped for, but you can’t say it wasn’t competitive. It was a close one either way!

Congrats, Greg! Great job, well-deserved! To Shawn and Valber as well.

The longest limit of the series went to Matthew Conant, who hauled in a 58-inch bag in round one.

Round one also saw two anglers haul in the biggest fish of the season. Both Matt and Ronel Mullen put up a 21.50. Based on next biggest fish, Matt’s 18.5 trumps Ronel’s 16.25, giving Matt this one as well!

Thanks to everyone for participating this season. We’re going to make some changes for the 2022 season, which we’ll announce in the new year.

If you want to check out this year’s matches, click here.

The Grind of All Grinds

September 19, 2021 0 Comment

The Western Division wrapped up its first season yesterday with the grind of all grinds at Lake Garfield in the mountain town of Monterey.

We had a dozen anglers, a foggy start, and a tough bass bite. The juvenile Pickerel bite, however, was on fire.

Garfield has both largemouth and smallmouth, but by the midway point of the day, just over a handful of fish had been submitted. Nelson da Costa took an early lead with a 15.75 and a 17.75 (the eventual lunker), while myself, Jerry Howes, and Scott Rhodes stayed within striking distance.

There was a flurry of action after noon, when Nick Ringgard and Michael Williams both caught their second fish to join the leaders, but a third fish submitted by Scott with about fifteen minutes left in the day earned him the win. Huge congrats to him for outlasting the field!

Nelson, as mentioned above, took lunker with his 17.75 and finished in second for the day. Congrats to him!

Michael landed a 20.75 Pickerel to snag the lunker there. Nice job!

Finally, Nelson and I would like to thank everyone that participated in the trail this year. We weren’t quite sure what the turnout would be but were happy to have so many folks consistently make it to the events. Also HUGE thanks to Ken Wood, John Ferreira, Kevin Amaral, Donald Davis, and Bruce Levy for the support and help throughout the year! This was our first year doing this, and their experience made it much easier on us!

The list of championship qualifiers will be out soon, so hope to see you then!

Slow Day, No Limits

September 19, 2021 0 Comment

The Eastern Division closed out its regular season yesterday at Walkers Pond and Upper/Lower Mill Ponds, three connected bodies of water in Brewster.

Unfortunately I wasn’t at this one, so I don’t have all the details. I did, though, check the standings a few times throughout the day, so I knew it was a tough bite. I fished these ponds quite a bit back when my in-laws had a house in Chatham, so I know the numbers put up are not indicative of what those ponds can produce.

Despite the slow day, one that produced no limits, some good fish were caught. Three of the top four bass were smallies, including a monster 20.50 caught by Torrence Davis.

For a while, it looked like Torrence was going to win the smallmouth lunker pool and the overall lunker pool, but with a little over 30 minutes left in the event, Mike Morcone smoked a 20.75 fatty largemouth, which ultimately took the overall pool, leaving Torrence’s big sally at the top of the smallmouth leaderboard.

Mike also smashed a 22.25-inch pickerel to take home the pickerel lunker pool as well.

We paid out four spots for this event, and landing in fourth place was our resident hip-hop star Kelvin Nova. It wasn’t much, but his 40.50 was enough.

Kevin Amaral didn’t have much either, but his 46.50 bested sixteen others for third place. Can’t complain about that, right?

Like Kelvin and Kevin, Bruce Levy only had three fish, but he had two on the bigger end, which gave him 49.25 and second place—and pretty much locked him in for Angler of the Year. But we still have the Championship, so we shall see…

The angler of the day, however, was Mike Morcone, who sat on a grass line all day and waited for the bass to come to him. He only caught four, but three were good ones, including that 20.75-inch slob. His 71.75 was more than enough to take the win. Add in lunker and pickerel lunker, and that’s a pretty good payday. Congrats, man!

And congrats to everyone else! Seems that the bite was tough all across the state, with the Western Division closing out their season on a stingy bite as well.

Maybe we’ll put this one on the schedule again next year since it was an off day. Who knows?

You can check out the final results here.

Our next event is the championship on Webster Lake on October 23. I will post the list of qualified anglers soon!

In the Last Twenty…

September 10, 2021 0 Comment

The latest Thursday Night Throwdown took place last night on Snipatuit Pond. Six anglers showed up, two backed out last-minute, so we’re still paying out eight spots.

With the evening drop in temperature and rain all day, the bite was definitely tougher than expected out there.

For a while, Matthew Conant was the only one with a fish—a dinky 13.75. Nate Chagnon then moved into first with a 14.50, where he stayed for a while. Scott Rhodes then moved into first with two fish, and he later added a third to keep the top position for most of the night.

I wasn’t paying too much attention to the leaderboard, so I missed some other movements, I’m sure, but I know Matt tied Scott at one point, but Scott still had the lead with a bigger fish for the tie-breaker.

Derek Brundle lost a phone overboard, then had an 18.50 he couldn’t take a photo of because his other phone wasn’t working properly in the rain, so he left. Had he gotten a photo of that fish, he’d have won with a solid 52.75.

But in the end, it was Matt who pulled off the win, landing a 15.75 twenty minutes before the buzzer that put him ahead of Scott by two inches.

Great job, fellas! Congrats.

Results can be found here.

This may be the last Throwdown of the season. They’ve been fun, and we’ll undoubtedly do them again next year. But we’ll see. In two weeks, if the weather is looking good for a Thursday-nighter, we’ll set one up.