On a personal note, I’d like to thank all of you for making this one of the best fishing communities around. When I started this group in 2016, I had no idea how much and how fast we would grow. I’ve met some amazing people through this group and beyond, and I’m happy to call many of you a friend.
So here’s to 2020! It’s gonna be a hell of a year!
I know better now, but watching a video like this before I flipped would have been a great help. This information is invaluable, in cold or warm weather.
“Know how to save your own life.”
Thanks, Jeff!
It was not our most efficiently run event, new format and all, but we made it through. Definitely needs some tweaks if we’re to ever do it again.
Because we were fishing Oldham, we ran an optional crappie lunker pool, as they’re abundant there and usually pretty aggressive.
In addition, we ran optional smallmouth and pickerel lunker pools.
Smallmouth are even less abundant, but appearing in greater numbers as time passes. Only one smallie was caught, though—an 18.75 fatty caught my Kevin Amaral Jr., who once again did not enter the lunker pool. Someday he’ll learn…
Those who did enter got their money back.
Pickerel lunker was a three-way tie between me, Peter, and Bruno. We each had a 20-incher and split a $100 pot. Though, upon further inspection, my pickerel was very clearly a 20.25, which makes my taking a smaller cut of that uneven $100 pie even sadder. Haha.
Ari Stonehill walked away with the crappie lunker, catching an 11.25, the only one caught all day.
The day’s biggest largemouth was hauled in by Zachary Smus, who put up a 20.50-inch largemouth. A bit of good fortune, as he also lost his phone to the depths. Sorry, dude!
Since this was a team event and pots were being split, we paid out only three spots.
Coming in third place was the very creative Team Lame Name, consisting of me and Ari. Prior to culling our smallest fish, Ari had the biggest limit of the day with 79 inches. As a team, though, our best five went 81 inches. I only caught two fish on the day, so Ari most definitely carried us. Thanks, buddy!
Gerard Elias and Mike Elrick comprised Team Hobie, and they managed to maneuver around the rocks and shallow areas without breaking those cheap drives (LOLZ, I keed, I keed), ultimately catching enough bass for second-place with 82.75. Congrats, fellas!
And first place went to…
Team Get Outta My Spot!
Rude, am I right? Not unexpected, really, coming from John Ferreira and Kevin Amaral. Mean bastards, those two.
Anyway, their best five went 83.75, enough to cement the victory in our first ever team event. Great job, you big meanies!
Full results here.
(Ignore the angler standings, as fish were culled, making those irrelevant.)
As always, thanks for coming out, everyone. Pretty sure this was our last event of the season. I’m not burnt out, but I’m looking forward to a break from fishing. I have a lot of other things I need to work on. But if the weather remains mild and some of the other guys want to run one, go for it!
We’ve been discussing it for years now, but I think we’ll finally see an MAKB ice tournament this winter. If you’re into that, keep an eye out for details.
We do not require our anglers to share those same beliefs, but openly and continuously disparaging our partners—or our sponsors, anglers, etc.—on social media undermines MAKB as a whole.
It will no longer be tolerated.
Going forward, if you choose this path, you will be removed from our groups and banned from fishing our events.
Constructive criticism is always welcome. Baseless accusations and conspiracy theories are not.
As leaders of this group, through input from our anglers and from others withing the kayak community, we make decisions based on what we feel is best for the group as a whole. We try, but we cannot please everyone. All we ask is that you trust us.
Thank you.
Well, it was a barn burner for some, and a very humbling experience for others.
I fished two lakes, one of which is a longtime honey hole and the other a place I’ve been fishing since I was a little kid, and I managed just two bass, only one being a keeper.
Yeah, that’s humbling. Haha. But let’s talk about the winners!
Yesterday, as most of you know, John Ferreira put up a seemingly unbeatable 414.25 inches, roughly 150 inches ahead of his nearest competitor.
Around noontime on day two, however, Allan Seniuk and Steve Scott started making some moves. Around 4 PM, Allan moved up into second place, inching closer to that top spot…
And then I turned off the standings. Don’t you love when I do that?
Allan did take the lead, bumping John down to second place, and he began adding to it, looking to reach 500 inches by the 6 PM deadline. He didn’t quite get there, though, and ended up with a whopping single-day total of 31 bass for 462.75 inches!
But…he didn’t win.
Emerging from the purgatory of 1x signal strength, Steve Scott began surging up the leaderboard as he uploaded everything he was unable to earlier in the day. Steve’s 36 bass totaled out at 471.50 inches, just shy of 500 but plenty enough for the victory!
Congrats, bro! And to Allan and John—great job out there!
Each of these three anglers beat the rest of the field by at least 100 inches! Wow!
Steve also won a YakAttack Park-N-Pole kindly donated by Dennis Kiroff. The top three won a prize pack from Three X’s Fishing, and the top five—which included Jay Sebastian (4th) and Joseph Daddeo (fifth)—won prize packs from KneeDeep Tackle!
Thank you for that!
We also had a few lunker side pots. For those, Cameron Burke took the largemouth pot with his 19.50, and Gabe Portes’s 18.25-inch smallmouth nabbed him the smallie pot. Awesome job, guys!
Thanks to everyone who fished this one! Next time we’ll do it earlier in the year.
To the winners, payments will be made within 48 hours. This will give us time to go through the submissions and make sure everything is accurate.
Thanks again, and congrats once more!
It’s not.
Anglers wishing to become the MAKB Angler of the Year need to compete in a minimum of five events, consistently catch limits, put quality fish on the board, and finish in the top five. None of those alone will do it.
And we have a lot of excellent fishermen in this group, so getting to the top, or even close to it, is a great achievement and something to be proud of.
So it is my pleasure to officially announce the 2019 MAKB Angler of the Year: Kevin Amaral Jr!
Kevin fished in nine tournaments and caught 44 bass (not including culled fish) this year, racking up two wins, three second-place finishes, and a fifth-place finish. He also had lunker largemouth and smallmouth once each, both of which were fish that contributed to his Top 25 season length of 410.50. Add to that 23 points from his top-five finishes, and his winning total season total length was 433.50!
His 20.75-inch smallmouth was also the biggest bass caught during any of our ten events.
Consistency is the key, as I mentioned, and the without a doubt Kevin performed at a consistently higher level than the rest of us this year. A well-deserved victory, my friend! Congrats.
Here are your top ten anglers for 2019! Great job, fellas!
Kevin Amaral, Jr. – 433.50
Ken Wood – 420.00
John Ferreira – 406.25
Gabe Portes – 397.25
Paulo DeMorais – 397.00
Lee Kennon – 388.25
Bruce Levy – 384.75
Donald Davis – 383.00
Steve Scott – 378.50
Bruno Casagrande – 377.25
Click here to check out the full 2019 Angler of the Year standings.
Congrats again, guys!
Twenty-six of MAKB’s finest fished Long Pond and Little Long Pond in Plymouth today for our season closer. Many who pre-fished reported less than stellar results, lots of small fish, and…that’s pretty much how it played out today.
As always, we also ran some optional lunker pools. This time smallmouth and pickerel.
Valber Santos walked away with the pickerel cash. He thanks Mike Elrick—who caught a giant—for not opting into the pickerel pool.
Both smallie and largemouth lunker went to Gabe Portes, who had a 12.50 and 20.50, respectively. He thanks Kevin Amaral, Jr.—who caught a 14.75-inch smallie—for not opting into the smallie pool, and also Doug Savage for allowing his 15-inch smallmouth to flop off his board and back into the lake. Haha.
Most of us launched into Long Pond to start, while five or six, myself included, dropped into Little Long Pond. I had my first fish on the board at 7:03 AM, an 8-incher. Little did I know that I’d be intentionally hunting those a few hours later…
And I wasn’t the only one.
At some point Angelo David jumped over to Little Long Pond and quickly dropped five on the board, four of them dinks—and small dinks at that. But that was the name of the game today. Anchored by a 15-incher, his 50.50 pushed him up into fifth place for the day. Congrats!
Jared Meegan had a nearly identical limit—a 15, two 9s, and two 8s, same as Angelo—just with a few that were slightly bigger. With 51.50, he took fourth place and a little scratch in just his second tournament with us (his first was last year). Great job, man!
As I mentioned, my first fish came three minutes in. A few hours after that, struggling to find a limit, I went shallow and deliberately targeted the schools of tiny bass roaming the shallows. I quickly filled out my limit and started to upgrade, one measly quarter inch at a time—all 8- and 9-inchers. At noon, I switched sides and managed one small upgrade—an 11.75 smallie—to give me 59.25 on the day. Not impressive, but good enough for third place.
Kevin Amaral, Jr. had, I thought, one 8-inch bass when he and his pops, Kevin Amaral, jumped over to the big lake. But no, Kevin’s a sandbagger. Evil, basically. No one likes a sandbagger, Kevin! So out of nowhere, he rudely knocked me down to third, taking the second-place spot and holding it to the finish line. He had 62.50.
He is also unofficially the 2019 Angler of the Year! He’s not on Facebook, but he’s a good kid and a great angler, so if you’re on Tinder, congratulate him!
I will get the AOY standings updated soon and make everything official.
Now, remember what I said about sandbaggers? Did you know that I was in first place for a split second? At 11:38 AM I uploaded a whopper of a 9.50-inch bass, which put me in first place. As I was break dancing on the front deck of my kayak and screaming a la Mike Iaconelli, Kevin Jr. pedaled by and said, “Did you see that Gabe put up a twenty?”
Indeed he did. A 20.50, which he’d caught in the morning and held onto for the right moment, that perfect time to crush my dreams! Haha.
(Not sure why this got so goofy. Sorry!)
Seriously, though, that big bass made all the difference today. Without it, Gabe would have had 58.75 and third place, instead of 69 inches, first place, and lunker.
Congrats, bro! Two wins in a row! Kick ass.
Check out the standings here.
Thanks to everyone for coming out, as always, and for supporting this trail and group all season. It’s been great fun.
Thanks to Donald Davis, Bruce Levy, Mike Elrick, and everyone else who has helped out at these events. Especially Sarah Wood, our judge. The value of that seemingly small contribution is immeasurable.
As always, we will try to run a few more events, as long as interest is there, until it gets too cold. We want to try a team event before then, but first…OKTOBERFISH!
In two weeks, October 5th and 6th, we will run an online no-limit event. You pick one day to fish, Saturday or Sunday, 6 AM to 6 PM, any public body (or bodies) of water in the state of Massachusetts, as many fish over 12 inches you can catch in those 12 hours!
I’ll get the event uploaded to TourneyX soon! Who’s in?
First, thanks for judging, Sarah.
We paid out five spots, the 50/50 raffle, plus lunker pools for largemouth, smallmouth, and pickerel.
Gerard won the 50/50 raffle. Second time this year!
Ari Stonehill smashed a massive 27-inch, 5-plus-pound pickerel, which was more than enough to win that lunker pool. What a fish!
The biggest smallmouth was put up by Mike Elrick, but he failed to get in on the optional lunker pool. I’m pretty sure I hooked one bigger, but failed to land it. Lame for us, but great for Lee Kennon who walked away with a cool $180 for his 15.50-inch smallie.
(I fished the hell out of this place as a kid and never once caught a smallie. I barely believed they were in there, but I caught about seven of them today. Crazy.)
Gabe Portes caught some big fish pre-fishing, and he followed that up with a giant 20.50 today, which nabbed him the largemouth lunker cash.
Great stuff, fellas!
Let’s take a moment to thank Sarah for judging. Thanks, Sarah! You’re the best.
Here’s your top five…
In his little sit-in, Donald Davis braved the wind and waves, spending most of his day fishing offshore. When I passed him he was throwing a little crankbait, but that was probably a decoy. Haha. Whatever he was throwing, it netted him 81.50 inches of Massapoag bass and fifth place!
With two weddings to attend today, John Ferreira still managed to fish all eight hours, haul in a solid 85.25 inches, and rake in some fourth-place cash. Kick ass!
Before I forget. Thanks for judging, Sarah. You’re awesome!
I have lost fish in two recent events, all of which would have put me in the money. I lost two more today. Bruno Casagrande watched me lose a good-size smallie, and Gerard Elias witnessed my agony as a big largemouth spit the frog in the pads. Luckily I still pulled out a third-place finish with 86 inches. Phew!
Chris Catucci has been dropping the hammer at Ocean State Kayak Bassin’ and Rhode Island Kayak Bassin’ events this season, so it’s no surprise to see him at the top of our standings. Chris grabbed the second-place spot with 86.50!
Pre-fishing and a “magic” dock paid off for Gabe Portes, who killed it today, winning by five inches with 91.50 inches, tying our all-time second-best limit! Excellent job, bud. Brasil! Porra sim!
Or something like that. Haha.
Check out the full standings here.
And thank Sarah for judging.
Great job, everyone, especially those in the money. Always good seeing those who don’t often fish with us—Tyler, George, and Steve in particular.
I’m often distracted at the end of these things. Fairly common thing—SQUIRREL!—but I appreciate everyone coming out and all those who lend a hand to me or others. Thank you!
Speaking of thanking people… Sarah, thanks for doing all the judging. You rock!
With the KBF Regional Trail Championship coming up on Lake Erie, our last regular-season event of the year is nearly a month away. We’ll be fishing Long Pond in Plymouth on September 21. We have two permits for this one, as we’re including Little Long Pond, so let’s hit 30 anglers and make this one a National Championship qualifying event!
By the way, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Sarah for judging the fish today. Thanks, Sarah!
We made this one a roadrunner event, which allowed anglers to launch from any public launch area on either lake, but most dropped into Upper Mystic from the main ramp, while four of us gave Lower a go.
The baitfish were going crazy in the morning, right at the ramp and along the dam on both sides, so much so that it looked like it was raining. And the bigger fish were feasting. I expected everyone to start there, but from what I saw, only three—one on Upper and two on Lower—chose to fish those spots.
Like most tournaments, this one came down to making the right decisions, and while many of us did well, two absolutely CRUSHED it!
Smallies are present in Lower Mystic, so Troy and I opted into that lunker pool since we started on that side. We both got our money back. Had Donald Davis got in on that he’d have won himself a big fat $20.
We also had an optional pickerel lunker pool, as we often do, and out of 22 anglers only Gerard Elias caught a pickerel, right before the end of the tournament. Nice!
Lunker largemouth went to both Kevin Amaral Jr. and Bruno Casagrande, both of whom tied with a 20.25. Technically, per KBF rules, it should have all gone to Kevin (because he had the next biggest fish), but at a previous event I mistakenly announced that the tie-breaker goes to the fish uploaded first. That’s an old KBF rule, one I’ve always hated, but for some reason I had a brain fart at that event. The right angler got the lunker money then, but this time Bruno was expecting to win it based on what I’d previously said but Kevin had the next biggest fish. Thankfully they were both gracious enough to split the winnings. Thank you for that! And sorry once again for making that mistake.
And speaking of lunkers, Donald caught himself a giant carp and Paulo DeMorais landed a big ol’ striper! Not what they were looking for, but a fun ride I’m sure.
Mike Elrick stuck it out in the lower pond the entire day, the only one not to switch over to or from Upper Mystic. His 76.50 inches of Mystic bass scored him a fifth-place finish!
Coming in fourth place—and placing in the top five for his fourth time this year—was Lee Kennon with an even 77 inches.
After catching four fish in Lower Mystic, I jumped over to Upper just before noon. I’d planned to shoot up to the north end where it was shallow and weedy, but decided to try the dam first. I had a shaky head setup ready to go, something I haven’t fished since I flipped my yak in 2018 and lost all my shaky head hooks. It was the right decision.
At 11:49 AM I caught my fifth fish, then got a small upgrade at 11:53, and then another at 11:56, all just left of the spillway, all on the shaky head, on back to back to back casts. Those three fish bumped me up to third place with 78.75.
Had I started in Upper Mystic, I would have gone north, to the two small, shallow, weedy “ponds.” My kind of fishing. Part of me regrets not doing so because Bruce Levy did, and we both fish so similar and like the same kind of stuff that we often end up in the same areas. And Bruce killed it!
Just after 10 AM I got a text from Lee that said: “Wtf Bruce?!” I thought: “Huh? I’m not Bruce.” And then thought: “That bastard just caught a tank!” Haha. Nope. He caught three—a 20, an 18.75, and an 18.25—in roughly 30 minutes, and out of nowhere was in the lead with 89 inches.
By what everyone else was catching, it seemed like Bruce had it in the bag, but Kevin Amaral Jr. was fishing up north and slaying giants as well…
At the end of the day, Bruce was able to cull up a half inch to 89.50, but it wasn’t enough to best Kevin who dropped a hefty 90-inches on the board for his second win of the year!
Congrats to both of you! You beat the field by 10+ inches! Hell of a job.
The top five also received MAKB hats kindly donated by Bruno and Krazy Kats Embroidery, all featuring the MAKB logo on the front and their placing and lake name on the back. Very cool gesture, man. Much appreciated!
Great job to everyone else, and thanks for coming out, as always. Chris Kincade joined us for the first time as well. Great meeting you, man, and I hope everything goes smoothly wherever you’re deploying to. We’ll see you next year!
Full results can be found at this link.
Our next event is on August 24 at Lake Massapoag in Sharon. Hope to see you there!
First, and this should go without saying, READ THE RULES! Please. We follow Kayak Bass Fishing’s rules for the most part, and you can find a link to them on all of our event pages, either here on our group page or on TourneyX. Reading them is worth your time.
And that’s not just a suggestion for anglers new to our events, we’ve had to disqaulify and deduct length from a number of submissions uploaded by veterans of our group. KBF does update/clarify the rules throughout the season, so it’s worth going over them now and then.
But let’s talk about some of the things we commonly see at our events.
The fish’s eye is covered. This is probably the most common rule infraction we see, especially with smaller fish. Covering the eye is an immediate rejection.
The fish is facing the wrong way on the measuring board. Easily the second most common mistake anglers make.
To ensure this does not happen to you. Here is how you measure the fish on the board: With, for instance, the measuring board oriented on your lap left to right, the fence/bump facing left, the bass must be placed on the board with its head left, nose/lip touching the vertical fence/bump, caudal (tail) fin right, dorsal fin facing up (away from you).
This is how the fish must be oriented regardless of how you position your board when taking a photo (so “up” may be “down” for you, “left” may be “right,” and so forth). Don’t let that confuse you.
The fish’s mouth is open more than a quarter inch. Another common mistake. If any mouth is open more than a quarter inch (tie goes to the angler in MAKB, not KBF), you will receive a one-inch deduction. If your fish is anywhere between 8 and 8.75 inches, it will then be denied after the deduction is applied because it will now be below our minimum allowed length of 8 inches.
The picture is blurry. We must be able to see the numbers, or at least one number, on the board. We’ve had to deny big fish for this reason, and in at least two instances it cost the angler money. We don’t want to do this, but if we cannot see any number on the board we have no choice.
As long as we can see something—a number, at a minimum—we will score it as best we can. The ideal photo, of course, is one that is clear, so do not release your fish until you are sure you have taken a quality photo.
Those four examples are what we commonly see, but there are some outliers.
Hand under the gill plate. This has only happened a few times. Anything—hand, identifier, etc.—under the gill plate is an automatic denial.
Hand touching the caudal (tail) fin. A less common mistake, but one that does happen. You may touch the fleshy base of the tail, but not the fin itself. Be careful not to block with your hand where those two parts of the fish meet. If we cannot determine if you are or are not touching the caudal fin because your hand is in the way, we will deduct an inch.
Anyway, the last thing we ever want to do is deny a fish or deduct length. This has often caused an angler to lose out on money and even the victory. We don’t feel good about doing that, and I’m sure the angler feels much worse.
For those new to tournament fishing, or new to MAKB, I’m sure it doesn’t encourage some of them to fish with us again because, as we all know, some of these rules are seemingly extreme.
A one-inch deduction for a mouth open a hair past a quarter inch? Yeah, that’s extreme, but it’s a penalty, and it’s part of the game we signed up to play. And as long as we all endeavor to read and follow the rules, this sort of thing should never be an issue at our events.
Mistakes will be made, though, from time to time. I’ve screwed up before and I know the rules well. So please take a moment to read the rules. Then read them again.
We don’t adhere to all of these rules, so you can find a rules addendum in the FILES section of our Facebook page. Please read those as well.
Below are are some examples of submissions that received deductions, the reasoning listed underneath the photo. Scroll through them and make sure you don’t make the same mistakes…
Even with what would have been a one-inch deduction for an open mouth infraction, this blurry photo cost the angler a second-place finish.
Luckily for this angler he had another, better quality photo, otherwise this blurry photo would have cost him the lunker prize.
This fish is facing the wrong way and cost the angler a second-place finish. It was the anglers first tournament with us.
This fish is facing the wrong way and, at the time of its rejection, cost this veteran angler the lunker prize.
Luckily for him he rallied and put two even bigger fish on the board to not only still win the lunker prize but the entire event.
First-time MAKB angler. Both of his submissions during this tournament were rejected for his hand covering the eye.
Denied for covered eye. Veteran angler.
Denied for covered eye. Had the angler not covered the eye, this fish would have received a one-inch deduction for a wide-open mouth.
Typically we see this rule infraction with smaller fish, but it happens with bigger fish as well. It was denied.
Denied. Angler is touching the caudal fin.
FYI: There is a very good reason for this seemingly silly rule.
This was denied for obvious reasons. The entire fish and bump/fence portion of the measuring board is not visible in the photo.
Multiple issues here:
1. Eye covered.
2. This was during our month-long No Limit event a few years ago which had a 12-inch minimum. This fish does not touch 12 inches.
3. Both of those things were reason for rejection, but had neither been the case, the entry would have received a one-deduction for its mouth being open more than 1/4 inch, dropping it below 12 inches, which would have resulted in a rejection.
Denied. This picture exemplifies why KBF instituted its ban on having anything under the hard gill plate.
Denied. The nose/lips of the bass are not touching the bump/fence of the measuring board. By about three inches.
This one was given a one-inch deduction for touching the caudal fin, which very likely did not happen. However, we could not make that determination because of the angler’s hand placement, so it was penalized. Luckily for him, though, he had another picture where his hand was not near the tail.
If you have any questions, just ask.
