The Western Division wrapped up its first season yesterday with the grind of all grinds at Lake Garfield in the mountain town of Monterey.

We had a dozen anglers, a foggy start, and a tough bass bite. The juvenile Pickerel bite, however, was on fire.

Garfield has both largemouth and smallmouth, but by the midway point of the day, just over a handful of fish had been submitted. Nelson da Costa took an early lead with a 15.75 and a 17.75 (the eventual lunker), while myself, Jerry Howes, and Scott Rhodes stayed within striking distance.

There was a flurry of action after noon, when Nick Ringgard and Michael Williams both caught their second fish to join the leaders, but a third fish submitted by Scott with about fifteen minutes left in the day earned him the win. Huge congrats to him for outlasting the field!

Nelson, as mentioned above, took lunker with his 17.75 and finished in second for the day. Congrats to him!

Michael landed a 20.75 Pickerel to snag the lunker there. Nice job!

Finally, Nelson and I would like to thank everyone that participated in the trail this year. We weren’t quite sure what the turnout would be but were happy to have so many folks consistently make it to the events. Also HUGE thanks to Ken Wood, John Ferreira, Kevin Amaral, Donald Davis, and Bruce Levy for the support and help throughout the year! This was our first year doing this, and their experience made it much easier on us!

The list of championship qualifiers will be out soon, so hope to see you then!