Whoooo! That was a barn-burner. Giant smallies all day, baby!

Wait, that was the dream I had last night. Today was more of a nightmare.

We had twenty-seven anglers attempt to tackle Mashpee-Wakeby today, a lake that is too often a soul-crushing body of water. But when it’s on? Sweet Baby Jesus!

Early launch was at 6:30 AM today, and I’m sure most of us were shaking with anticipation as we watched our fishfinder screens light up. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty feet, it didn’t matter, fish were stacked everywhere!

Massive bait balls were as well, and as we all quickly found out, the bass weren’t interested in our lures when they were surrounded by that kind of buffet.

But we tried…

I had my first bass at 9 AM, a massive 8.25-incher which I happily uploaded. I didn’t get my next bass until 1:25, and that was pure luck.

I had skipped up under a pontoon, only to have the wind push me into it. And of course that’s right when I hooked a nice smallie, which I proceeded to lose because my rod and yak were in a weird spot and I could barely reel. Annoyed, I shoved myself away from the pontoon and, for some odd reason, angrily skipped my bait back up underneath it. To my surprise, an 18.50-inch largemouth nailed it and I managed to land that one.

From there I went into Pickerel Cove, looking for a pickerel or a trout, shooting for those lunker pools instead. I tossed out the spinnerbait and hooked a small pickerel, but it got off when I opted not to use the net. It was small, so no big deal, right? Wrong.

At 1:42, I caught my third bass. At 1:48, I had my fourth, and my fifth came at 2:03, and then at 2:04, my next cast, I caught another that culled out my 8.25. All small, but at least I had a limit. Whoohooo and whatnot.

For a good part of the day, Chris LaCourse was in the lead, only to be overtaken by John Ferreira. When the standings went off at 1 PM, our resident sandbagger Kevin Amaral Jr. had taken the lead. Here’s how the everything played out in the end…

Lunker pickerel went to Nate Chagnon, who had a 15.50. Kicking myself for not netting the one I hooked. Breaks of the game. But Nate’s cashing a check yet again. Hell yeah, bro!

To my surprise, my 18.50 was good enough for lunker largemouth, while Donald Davis nabbed lunker smallmouth with a tank 19.50!

John Ferreira did not get into the trout pool despite catching one while pre-fishing. He was, as far as I’m aware, the only one who caught a trout today. No money for him, but he did get dinner.

Everyone who opted into the trout pool will be refunded.

Fifth place went to our most-improved angler this season: Nate Chagnon. Boom! Nate did the Chagnon Shuffle™ all the way to 51.25.

Unfortunately, Chris LaCourse couldn’t find a fifth fish today, which would have given him at least second place and possibly the win. Disappointing, no doubt, but his four fish totaling 54.50 were enough to secure fourth place.

Hot off of his Maspenock win, John Ferreira hauled in 58 inches to land in third place. A decent payday to cover the cost of replacing the rod he broke.

Amazingly, my late-day run skyrocketed me from 8.25 to 60 inches even, which was enough to take second place. Crazy.

And despite leaving early, Kevin Amaral Jr’s dinks were a bit less dinky than everyone else’s, which, anchored by a solid 18-incher, gave him 70.50 inches and the win! Has he reversed the AOY Curse?

Great job, everyone! Way to grind it out! There were just six limits caught today, and only 15 anglers caught fish. Brutal.

If you want to check out the full results, you can do so here.

Good to see some new faces out there, even if it was a pretty awful day of fishing.

Our next event is in three weeks, October 17, at Billington Sea. Registration will go live Sunday, October 11, at 7 PM.