Carvalho Grabs Win at Mashpee, Shpack Earns 2012 AOY

Avid’s final event for the 2012 season was the BASS Federation Nation Pro-Am Open on Mashpee-Wakeby. At stake was the club’s Angler of the Year title, BASS points, prize money and lunker award money. Although the Angler of the Year title was virtually a foregone conclusion—what with John Shpack having amassed three consecutive first place finishes—there was a slim chance that Paul or Wade could sneak into the winner’s circle.

The weather was great for this tournament, with sunny skies and comfortable temperatures, water temps around 68 degrees, and a northerly wind. Despite the warming water there were still a number of fish on beds, especially in the south pond, which is deeper and takes a little longer to warm than the north basin. The wind was fairly strong though, which made bed fishing somewhat difficult. Some anglers who turned to post-spawn tactics had mixed results and at the weigh-in it was clear no stong pattern had emerged. Overall it was a surprisingly challenging day.

Luckily for Avid angler Paul Carvalho the challenge was finding a fifth fish to fill out his limit. While he would have weighed a respectable bag even with four fish, it was his hard-sought fifth fish that tipped the scales in his favor: a 5+ pound largemouth that earned him the event’s Pro lunker award, and clinched overall and club first place with a 14.35 bag. Bill Wright followed among Avid anglers with 5 fish at 8.13 pounds, and John Shpack claimed Avid’s third place finish with 4 fish weighing 6.72 pounds. Even with his first place finish Paul fell short of his AOY aspirations because he didn’t beat John by enough places to overcome.

Mathematically, Wade was John’s nearest competition but would have needed to beat him by 6 places AND participate in a future youth event to gain additional needed points. Bill Wright, while mathematically not able to catch John even with a first place finish at Mashpee, jumped up to finish in second place in the AOY standings, capping a very strong year.

Our next event is at Wequaquet on September 22 for our first event of the 2013 season. In between are the TBF and BASS fishoffs.