Thirty anglers fished our annual Three Lake Throwdown today, nine of which were at Lake Sabbatia, ten at Lake Nippenicket, and eleven at Neponset Reservoir.

The weather was hot, mostly sunny, but at least at Nippenicket it was pretty windy at times, which took the sting off the heat somewhat.

I don’t know all the details on how the other lakes fished, but it seemed like there was a decent bite going on at all three lakes until about 9:45 AM, when it just shut off. It was a struggle after that (and before it for some).

But for three lakes known to be tough, 125 bass were put on the board. And a few pickerel.

(For the love of God, stop submitting pics of pickerel! Sarah texts me every time to make sure it’s not a bass! Haha.)

Speaking of pickerel, Lee Kennon had to leave early due to a work emergency, but not before he landed a state-pin-length pickerel at 25 inches, which was more than big enough to take the pickerel lunker prize.

Big bass of the day went to John Ferreira and his 19.50! Good job, fellas!

Sitting on a weedbed for most of the day paid off for Donald Davis, who hauled up from the depths 73 inches of Sabbatia bass. In the money for the first time since his win at Neponset Reservoir last year. Congrats, bud!

And never placing in the money with MAKB before, Chris LaCourse worked the far back channel and river outlet at the Nip to the tune of 74.25 inches and a fourth place finish. Great job, man!

John Ferreira is having a great year in KBF events and he’s making a habit of finishing in the money at our events, either by landing in the top five, winning one of the lunker pools, or, like today, doing both. John frogged his way into third place with 74.75 inches. Awesome!

My kids like to use my soft plastic baits as toys. At first they were content with my ripped and torn baits discarded after tournaments, but eventually they wanted to “go shopping” in my tackle closet. Instead of continuously giving them baits I liked and used, I started letting them each pick out a cheap pack when at Walmart or Bass Pro. Whatever they wanted, usually the brightest, ugliest baits on the shelf.

Well, as many of you saw from my post yesterday, my daughter made me promise to use her “beautiful worms” (aka ugly, sparkly silver senkos) today. I pinky swore because she said they would “make me win.” Well, after an hour and a half with no bites, I grabbed that rod and tossed that beautiful worm to the edge of some weeds and—KAPOW!—I had 16.50 on the board.

I proceeded to catch at least a dozen more bass on those senkos before the last one broke in half (I only had two). I caught one other fish on a frog, and another on a chatterbait. The rest came on those two senkos—which I’ve since learned were Yum Dingers, “tinfoil” color. I know this because I now own three packs. Haha.

Anyway, I didn’t win it all, but I did win second place with 78.50, all thanks to my daughter. The most joy I’ve ever gotten from throwing a damn senko!

And it was all ruined by a cheater…

Originally this part detailed someone else’s win, but due to some questionable submissions and an extensive investigation later that day, it was determined that the angler in question willfully and shamefully cheated. Ultimately, when all was said and done, this gave me a rightfully earned victory, and a sweet one it should have been. Should have, but wasn’t…

Check out the full adjusted results here.

As always, thanks for coming out. Great to see some new anglers fishing with us—Liriano John, Medicen Rexx, Jim Silva, Derek Ramsey, and Angelo David. Hope you had a good time and come back and fish with us again!

Thanks to Sarah for judging once again! You rock!

Cheater removed courtesy of Photoshop.

We venture to the north shore (or as close as we’ve ever been to it) for our next event at Upper/Lower Mystic Ponds on August 3. Hope to see you there!