Tag: Tournament Results

Tight Lines & Tornadoes

August 5, 2018 0 Comment

Another one down!

Today was interesting. Things started out relatively calm, partly cloudy. Later, the rain started, light at first, then it stopped, then it picked up again. Torrential downpours followed, thunder, lightning, and a fun tornado warning.

The weather was all over the place today. Luckily we only had to pause for a short period of time.

Twenty-three anglers came out for this one. We paid out five spots, lunker largemouth and lunker pickerel.

Normally we’d rather not catch pickerel, but many of us were hunting them today. No one found a giant, but Allan Seniuk hauled in a 21-incher and took home a good chunk of change for his efforts.

A lot of solid bass were caught as well (out of 127 total), and the biggest was a 19.50 that Lee Kennon put on the board late in the afternoon.

Allan and Lee also fished their way into fifth and fourth places, each with 79.25, respectively. Congrats, fellas.

Last year’s A-1 champion, Bruce Levy, didn’t quite reach those heights again this year, but a respectable 82.75 landed him in third place. In fact, that’s 1.25 inches more than he won with last year.

After holding onto first for much of the day, I was bumped down to second sometime after noon, when I shut off the standings. I had an even 86 inches.

And the man who bumped me out of first place? Kevin Amaral! Kevin had a solid 87.25, which was more than enough for the victory! Congratulations, sir. Well deserved!

You can find the full standing here

Thanks for coming out, everyone, and thanks to those who rode out the storm! It was wet, but it was fun!

That sounds dirty. Haha.

Our next event is on August 18, our annual night tournament. This year it’s at Whitehall Reservoir in Hopkinton. You can register on TourneyX now.

Oldham All-Nighter

July 28, 2018 0 Comment

This past Friday night was my first time running an MAKB tournament, and I feel like it went fairly smooth!

We fished Oldham Pond in Pembroke, and had 14 anglers fish this impromptu night event. We paid out three spots and offered an optional lunker pool in three categories: largemouth, smallmouth, and crappie. Unfortunately, not one of us was able to pluck from the lake any of the rare but present smallies or the monster crappie.


Anglers…or coal miners?

This is how the rest played out: John Ferreira took home lunker largemouth with a 19.25, while Matt Morais narrowly edged out Donald Davis for third place with 77.25! Second also went to John with a solid 79.50, but the biggest bag of the evening—and continuing an epic month—went to Mr. July himself, Ken Wood, with an impressive 87.25.

Thanks to everyone who came out and fished this impromptu event!

—Steve Scott

Last-Minute Surge to the Top

July 22, 2018 0 Comment

Eight down, five to go. Depressing, huh?

Twenty-four of us hit the Charles River in Waltham this morning. The day started a bit chilly, but quickly heated up with the sun glaring down on us and not even a whisper of wind to be found until later in the day. And of course it was too windy at that point.

The first bass hit the scoreboard at 6:06 AM today. Two of them, in fact. They kept coming after that. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few fish, most were small.

The biggest of the day went 20 inches, which I caught just after 8 AM on a Rocky Ledge Tackle Spin Shad with a Dakota blade. Second cast after tying it on. My chatterbait was getting hung up in the weeds, but the Spin Shad slipped through and over it all with ease.

When I turned the standings off at noon, John Ferreira was in the lead, Edmar Junior was second, I was third or fourth, and…I can’t remember who rounded out the top five. By the end of the day, however, four of those five were booted from the top of the leader board.

Two late-afternoon upgrades bumped Valber Santos into the fifth spot with 73.75 inches, while Jesse Phipps put up 74.25 and got his first taste of MAKB cash and a fourth-place finish.

Donald Davis stayed upriver all day and it paid off in the amount of 75.75 inches and third place.

Sean McDonagh had a rough start to the day (car trouble) and got on the water late. But that didn’t stop him from wacky-rigging his way into second place with 78.50 inches. I believe this is also his first time ever in the money.

I caught my first fish at 6:03 AM, on a chatterbait slow-rolled over a small laydown. The fish went 14.75, and I thought it was a great start. Never got another bite on the chatterbait, but I did manage to catch an 8.25, then a 10.00, followed by an 11.00 shortly after. Not, in fact, a great start, but the 20-incher to come later boosted my morale. Sadly, I didn’t catch another fish for FIVE hours!

At noon I was about five inches out of first. With three small fish on the board, I had Gerard help me remove my Power Pole (after he landed a nice 17-incher) so I could paddle under the road and into Purgatory Cove. I fished there once before and caught some dinks, so I was hoping I could catch a few more and cull up. With an 8.25, I thought, a 16 would give me the lead (if nothing else changed, which of course it did).

I managed to catch two 14’s and an 11.25 in there. On the way back to the ramp, I stopped by the tree Gerard caught that 17 off of (and also an 18.75 right after I went into Purgatory Cove). Earlier in the day a nice bass rolled on my chatterbait but missed it, so I tossed a little finesse bait right into that spot next to a laydown…and out came an 18.25. This was 1:55 PM. That bass bumped me up to the top of the leaderboard with 81 inches. Without it, I don’t think I’d have even been in the top five! Pure luck, but I can’t complain.

Congrats to everyone in the top five, and also to those who managed to catch fish on a tough day.

Check out the full results here

Special shoutout to Mike Furness, who drove all the way down from NH to fish with us. Great seeing you again, sir!

Our next tournament is on August 4 at A-1 in Westboro. The event page is already up on TourneyX, with 19 registered so far.

19 Epic Minutes!

July 2, 2018 0 Comment

We fished Snipatuit Pond today, and…man, it was HOT! What little wind there was…was also HOT! Haha. Brutal.

Twenty-four of us toughed it out, though. You guys are awesome.

It was tough fishing for a lot of people. I don’t know what everyone was throwing, but awesome job if you caught them. Especially on the main lake. That one can be stingy.

We paid out five spots and lunker, plus pickerel lunker. John Ferreira didn’t catch any bass, but he did catch a 23-inch pickerel worth $140. Congrats, man!

I spent most of the day throwing the Sprinker frog, which pretty much sucks in any weed situation. Lame. So a little after 1 PM I finally smartened up and put on the trusty old Booyah Pad Crasher and immediately hooked up. I caught three upgrades in 19 minutes in one set of pads, one of them being a 20.75-inch, 6.17-pound tank. That was lunker largemouth for the day.

But we also had three 20.25-inchers caught, one of them being Gerard Elias’s new PB! Congrats, sir!

Fifth place went to Mike Elrick, with 64.75.

Bruce Levy and Domenic Eno tied with 75.25 apiece, but Dom had the next biggest fish, so Bruce took home fourth and Dom third.

Lee Kennon had the lead for most of the day, but he ended up in second with 85 even.

And that was because I lucked out and managed to find one of those magical spots that produced three bass in quick succession—at 1:10, 1:22, and 1:29—which bumped me up nearly 10 inches to 91.50.

If I hadn’t made the choice to tie on a different frog, Lee would have won. Crazy.

So…congrats everyone! Thanks for sticking it out and fishing in that awful heat. Next Saturday, at the moment, is looking better.

Check out the full results here.

See you at the next one!

Roasted on the Split

June 18, 2018 0 Comment

Tournament #5, our split-location event is done—and so are we. Well done. Today was brutal! Hot as hell, and virtually no wind.

We had 27 anglers today, fifteen of which fished Ponkapoag, while the other 12 fished Canton Reservoir.

Many of us were under the impression that it was a tough bite, but 153 fish were submitted, and many smaller fish were caught and not submitted.

So it was a decent enough day. Just a ton of 1- to 2-pounders were caught, and not many big ones.

Given the conditions, it seemed that Ponkapoag—with all the weeds and lily pads—would put out the day’s best stringers, but surprisingly Canton Reservoir produced the better fish. Although the biggest fish of the day—a 21-inch tank hauled in by Donald Davis—came from ol’ Ponky. Nice fish, man!

We paid out five spots today, and Ken Wood managed to pull in 81.25 inches to take fifth and a little bit of cash. Ken said he caught all his finesse fishing, then added, “It was torture, basically.”

Chris Diranian represented Team Ponky with 82 inches and a fourth place finish. Congrats, sir!

The top five spots changed quite a bit today. Hell, the top ten did. Domenic Eno had first for a while (as did others), and with a solid limit, but he landed in third overall with a respectable 85 inches.

For the second time this year, Lee Kennon took home the second-place prize. He had 68 inches when he placed second at Dark Brook Reservoir. Today he flipped it and put 86 inches on the board. Nice!

Valber Santos won a tournament last year fishing a common lure in an unconventional way. I won’t give away the technique, but it’s impressive, and once again it led him to victory—by just a half-inch. It was a close one!

Great job, bud!

Full standings can be found here.

Anyway, congrats, everyone. For all of us fathers with wives or girlfriends, we went fishing on Father’s Day! That’s a victory in and of itself.

Happy Father’s Day!

Great seeing everyone, especially some new faces: Bruce Sison and Joseph Daddeo, who drove a long way from southern NH to fish with us. Much appreciated, fellas. Hope to see you at a future event.

Special thanks to Michael Sales and MGC Fishing Equipment and Supplies for the bait packs. Much appreciated. You guys should definitely check out MGC if you’re in the area. Best tackle shop around.

Don’t forget to check out our other sponsors: Radfish Lures, Rocky Ledge Tackle, and Go Bananas Outdoors. We have a password-protected Members Only section on our website now (if you’ve fished with us, you’re a “member”), which details the discounts our these guys have graciously offered us.

If you need the password, shoot me a message.

Our next tournament is on July 1 at Snipatuit Pond in Rochester (I’ll get the event page and TourneyX page uploaded tonight). This one can be a tough nut to crack, so it’ll be interesting. Hope to see you there!

Great Herring Smallie Smash

May 26, 2018 0 Comment

Today we hit up Great Herring Pond in Plymouth, MA, for our fourth tournament of the season. Nineteen anglers showed up, and we paid out four spots, plus lunker largemouth and smallmouth.

Water temp was 62 degrees to start, which is ridiculous. Par for the course this year, though. The weather was good otherwise, if a bit breezy.

Herring and post-spawn conditions (though some caught some late spawners on beds) kept the bigger fish tight-lipped. Still, over 100 fish were caught and submitted.

With this being the first lake we’ve fished that has an abundance of smallmouth, all but two of us opted into the smallie lunker pool. Bryan Limeburner ultimately took home the smallie lunker prize with a 16.25.

(I mistook Lee Kennon’s 16.25 for a smallie—or assumed it was, I don’t know—and tried to give the lunker money to him since his next biggest was bigger than Bryan’s. Thanks for being honest, Lee!)

Kevin Amaral Jr. landed the biggest fish of the day, an 18.50 largemouth (one of only four caught), so he took home the lunker largie prize.

Kevin also came in fourth place with 64.50.

With 65.25, Brett Krill took third.

Ken Wood lost a 15-incher off the board early in the morning. After culling up two times late in the day, he wondered if that lost fish would have been the winning fish, but with twenty minutes left in the tournament, Domenic Eno settled the matter by culling up with a 15.25.

Ken ended up with 67.50 and second place, while Dom’s late-day bass gave him 71.75 and the victory.

You can see the full results here.

Great job, Dom, and everyone else! Good times, as always.

Big THANK-YOU to Michael Sales and MGC Fishing Equipment and Supplies for providing T-shirts and hats to the winners!

And thanks to everyone helping out with loading and unloading and shuttling guys back and forth to the ramp. We did not expect the ramp to be so busy at the end of the day, but it all went smoothly enough.

Good seeing some new faces as well. Sean and Willian, hope we see you guys at future events!

Speaking of which, our next event is a split-location tournament. You can fish either Ponkapoag Pond or Canton Reservoir. Your choice! The event page is already up on TourneyX, so register there. We will have the Facebook event page up shortly.

Very Close Finish

May 19, 2018 0 Comment

Winter temperatures greeted us this morning as we geared up for the third MAKB event of the year at Agawam Mill Pond. (Seriously. It was 37 degrees in Taunton! Absurd.) With the promise of rain, we anticipated a pretty uncomfortable day.

Twenty-one anglers were brave enough do battle with Mother Nature.

Fortunately, it warmed up somewhat and the rain held off until around noon, and even then it was little more than a sprinkle. Still, the cold morning temps and rain from the night before did us no favors (nor did the herring or the post-spawn conditions).

With water temps ranging from a ridiculous 53 degrees (likely just surface temps, but still…) to 62 degrees, the bite proved tough for a lot of us. Of those who caught fish, most caught small fish.

As always, though, some guys found quality bass when others could not.

Big fish were hard to come by. Five 17-inchers, one 19.25—caught by Julio Lopes—and 89 smaller fish. Julio obviously had lunker for the day.

He also came in fifth place, with a solid 73.75. Good job, man!

Chris Diranian put up 74.50 and nabbed the fourth-place slot, while Peter Arruda’s 75.75 landed him in third for the second tournament in a row.

For most of the day, one angler sat atop the leader board. That was Kevin Amaral Jr. But while a win seemed all but certain early on, another angler had other plans…

Just before 1 PM, Troy Brown culled out a 10.75 with a 12.75, giving him 76.50 inches and the victory—by a half inch!

Very nice finish, fellas! And congrats on your first MAKB victory, Troy!

Complete standings can be found here.

Thanks for coming out, everyone, especially considering it was supposed to rain most of the day. We appreciate it! Great time, as always.

Our next tournament is this coming Saturday at Great Herring Pond in Plymouth. The event page is live now. Register quickly, as it will most likely max out.

115 Bass, 112 Dinks

April 30, 2018 0 Comment

Dark Brook Reservoir is in the books! Interesting start to this one…

We’d gotten permission to park at the fire department training lot across from the ramp. We’d also gotten a promise from the water department that they would unlock the gate for us Friday night, then dummy lock it so we could open it when launching and leaving.

Well, not only was the gate locked in the morning, but at 7 AM, right as we were about to paddle away, someone from the fire department stopped by to tell us that they were conducting training today (something they insisted they were NOT doing) and that we had to move our vehicles!

All good, though. We moved to the school lot right there and were back on the water by 7:10.

We had 20 anglers today, and paid out five spots plus lunker largemouth and smallmouth.

We have yet to fish a pond with a large population of smallies, so once again a dink won it. That went to Brett Krill with a 10.75-incher. I know Jesse Phipps is kicking himself for not getting in one that pool because he caught an 11-incher. Haha.

Lunker largemouth went to Jake Schur, who hauled in a massive 23-inch, 7.10-pound beast. And it was a new personal best! CONGRATS!

The top five was tight today. Hell, the top 14 or 15 was pretty tight for most of the day. Any one could have propelled himself into the lead with one big fish. Unfortunately, it was a dinkfest for most of us.

Ken Wood caught nearly all his fish on a Rocky Ledge Tackle RL 2.5 square bill (Coach Craw color). At 1 PM, when we turned off the standings, he was in fifth place, and after a few small upgrades after that time, he thought—or hoped—he still had it. At the end of the day, though, he’d been bumped down to sixth and Jay Sebastian, who had 65 inches, had taken his place at fifth.

Deeka Collins had a solid day. He stuck to a pattern and it paid off with 67.75 inches of bass and a fourth-place finish. Good job, bud!

Peter Arruda also had 67.75, but his biggest (15.50) bested Deeka’s (14.75), giving him third and his first money win with MAKB! Congrats, man!

In the last hour, Lee Kennon put three fish on the board, culling two smaller ones, pushing his total to 68 inches even, which was enough to take second. With a lunker win in our first tournament (and currently sitting in second place in our Spring Challenge), his season is off to a nice start.

For a good part of the day, Jake Schur sat at the top of the standings with around 69 inches, well within reach of over a dozen anglers, despite his 23-inch slob anchoring his position. But at a little after 1 PM, he hauled in a 19.75, which sealed the deal with a grand total of 81.50, a 13.5-inch margin of victory.

To put this into perspective: out of 115 fish caught, only one other bass (caught by Lee Kennon) was bigger than 15 inches. Hell of a win, Jake!

Check out the full standings here.

Excellent day out there, fellas, despite the inconveniences in the morning. Great team work, too, helping everyone with getting the yaks over/under the gate!

Our next event is at Agawan Mill Pond in Wareham on May 19. I’ve never fished there, know nothing about it, but I’ve heard it’s a great fishery.

Hope to see you there, and thanks for coming out today!

All About the Weed

April 18, 2018 0 Comment

The first tournament of the year is in the books! We had 26 anglers—our biggest turnout yet!—and paid out five spots and lunker.

We were supposed to fish Santuit Pond but were forced to relocate at the last minute, so we fished Norton Reservoir instead. I think most of us would have preferred to fish Santuit, but at least we didn’t have to cancel the event entirely.

The day was windy, but not too cold, with water temps in the upper 40s to start. This made for a tough bite (last year’s weed kill no doubt played a role as well).

A handful of fish were caught early, but the bite died down after that. One of those early bites was a fat 19.50-incher, caught by Lee Kennon. That would remain the big fish of the day! Congrats, sir!

Lee was fishing a thick bed of weeds in about six feet of water when he caught that lunker. After last year’s weed kill, weed was sparse, but it was the key to victory on this day. Four of the top five anglers happened upon a small area at the back of the pond that had an abundant amount of weed near relatively deep water.

Ken Wood had 68.25, which had him bringing up the rear of the winner’s circle and taking fifth place. Valber Santos took fourth with 69.25, and Craig Page landed in third with 70.25. All separated by a single inch. It was tight at the top.

(The margin between fifth and sixth place was over 42 inches!)

Chris Diranian found his own pattern—throwing a white spinnerbait shallow—catching four fish in the last few hours to launch himself up into second place with 73.75.

And for the second year in a row, the season opener victory went to last year’s Angler of the Year champion, Bruce Levy, who found the weed first and hauled in 79 inches of bass! Thus he once again takes a seat upon the Angler of the Year throne…

For now.

Congrats, man! And everyone else who brought home some loot and caught fish. It was tough out there!

Thanks to everyone for coming out and sticking with us after the childish drama that ensued yesterday. Our fishing community is plagued by too much negativity, and it’s heartening to see that our group can rise above such petty nonsense. We appreciate it very much!

As always, it was great seeing everyone, especially the new guys—Bob, John, Nate, Matt, and Zachary! Hope we see you at some more this year.

Speaking of more, our next event is on April 28 at Dark Brook Reservoir in Auburn. See you there!

One More Time!

November 18, 2017 0 Comment

Though a lot of New Englanders have retired their fishing gear until next Spring, eight of us ventured out to Lake Sabbatia today to compete in one more tournament. It was cold in the morning, but with virtually no wind it wasn’t unbearable. Pretty nice day overall, actually, especially for November 18.

We paid out two spots and lunker, and it was a battle between this year’s Angler of the Year, Bruce Levy, and runner-up, Ken Wood.

Bruce and Ken found the same pattern—ripping a chatterbait through the weeds—in pretty much the same area. Ken, however, made a mistake: he left that area and headed down toward the dam after catching his first two bass. Bruce, on the other hand, went on to fish the area Ken had just left—and he killed it!

Ken caught nothing down by the dam, and then caught two more in the same spot he’d caught his first two bass. He shouldn’t have left.

Never leave fish to find fish, right?

In the end, Ken took second with 56 inches, while Bruce took first with 79.50 and lunker with an 18.75-inch kicker!

Congrats, Bruce!

Click here for the full results.

Thanks for coming, everyone. This will probably be the last one of the year. We’ll have next year’s trail posted soon!