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.
