Donovan Prevails on Tough Day at Lakeville

On May 7 Avid visited Long Pond in Lakeville for the first time since 2008. Long Pond has been notorious of late for giving up some pretty paltry weights, but other tournaments held there so far in 2011 have hinted that maybe that trend is in reversal. That’s what we were all hoping as we hit the water on Saturday morning.

The weather for the week leading up to the tournament was a mixed bag, but typical for New England spring: partly cloudy or rainy days, with highs in the 60s and lows at night in the low to mid 40s. Just when it seemed the days would warm the water enough to kick the spawn into high gear, the cooler rainy day and nights put the brakes on. Tournament day started with the dark water registering about 58 degrees, but after a few hours of sun, it ended up measuring as warm as 64-65 degrees, depending upon the area of the lake. The wind was mostly out of the south and was pretty manageable.

That said, our tournament couldn’t really be called an all-out spawn tournament — even though the better fish that were caught came off beds — since the spawn seemed to be only getting started. Many anglers who targeted likely spawning areas had only a few smaller fish to show for it or came up empty handed.

What we discovered was that, while there are still some very nice fish in Long Pond, they’re few and far between, and the fishery is still a shade of its former self. First place was claimed by Mark Donovan with a respectable limit of 11.26 pounds. Second place went to Paul Carvalho, who had 3 fish for 7.90 pounds. Jon Medeiros took third place honors with 5 fish at 6.91 pounds. Kurt Cash was all over the lunker award with a 4.46 pound beast.

Analysis of the day shows that, on the plus side, the average weight of fish in this tournament was up from our previous four events dating back to 2005 (just over 2 pounds, compared to about 1.6 pounds for all previous events). However, that might be expected from a spawn tournament, during which females are laden with eggs. All of our previous tournaments at Lakeville have been post-spawn. On the down side, the fewest number of fish were caught in this event than any other of our Long Pond tournaments, despite its having the greatest number of anglers. Only 25 fish were caught amongst the 17 particpants, and only two limits. All in all, it was a pretty tough day for most.