OK, there's quite a lot of news to get through in conjunction with Avid's (annual?) two-day event on Champlain. In no particular order, we'll find out the 2014 Angler and Co-angler of the year; the 2014 big fish award; the day 1, day 2, and combined winners; the new club records that were set, and the tournament reports for each day.
Pretty much everyone made it up to pre-fish on Friday, which saw a consistent weather pattern continue from the previous several days: mostly sunny skies with temps in the 80s with a light breeze. Friday's breeze - what little there was of it -- was from the north. Water temps were in the low to mid 70s. A nearly perfect setup for a good largemouth bite. The morning was foggy until about 8 am. The largemouth seemed to be positioned on the outside weed edges and the calm conditions made for a good topwater bite. It slowed as the day progressed but was effective all weekend, even as fish moved deeper into cover with the rising sun and heat. Fish could be gotten on frogs, Spooks and buzzbaits. For those that wouldn't rise to the bait, spider grubs, shaky heads, flipping, dropshotting and powershotting coaxed fish into the boat.
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Saturday's weather for tournament 1 was pretty much the same but without the fog, and with the wind shifted out of the south and temps a little warmer. The change in direction changed things a little for some guys, but overall the conditions remained pretty consistent for a strong bite. That indeed turned out to be the case as Fred Naymie nailed down first place with a nice limit of largemouths that weighed 17.43 pounds, including a 5.12 pound kicker fish. Following in second was Paul Carvalho, who just couldn't be kept away from the smallmouth, bringing in a bag of 5 brown fish that weighed 16.09 pounds. Paul's was the only bag that featured exclusively smallmouth. Only 3 other smallmouth were weighed on Saturday. Third place was claimed by Ed Doyle with a limit tipping the scales at 14.20 pounds. The lunker award for tournament 1 went to Mike Caudle, whose 5.80 pound fattie largemouth not only captured the day's lunker, but claimed the year's Big Fish award as well as set a new club record for biggest fish. The previous record of 5.45 pounds had held since 2005.
Paul's second place finish was as close as one could get to a perfect season. Having won all of the previous 2014 contests, Paul needed a win at Ti on day 1 to claim all 5 events and achieve a maximum point total of 2550 and a maximum limit of 25 fish in 5 events. While he didn't achieve the perfect feat points-wise, he easily captured 2014 Angler of the Year. In fact, he had cemented it after just 4 events so did not even have to fish at Ti to win the title. Along the way, he set new club records of most consecutive wins (4), highest single-day total weight (20.59), tied for most wins in a 5 T schedule (4), set highest total weight in 5 Ts (73.42), highest weight in season after drop (62.07), tied for most fish in 5 T schedule (25), tied for most fish after drop (20), set a new record for points in a 5 T season (2540), and most points after drop (2040 - highest possible). Congratulations on all, Paul!
On the co-angler side, John Boudreau captured the first official Co-angler of the Year title with a solid season of 2304 points. He wasn't shut out once during the season and has an annoying habit -- to boaters anyway -- of beating the boater he's paired with. Congratulations John!
Sunday's tournament 2, the first event of the 2015 season, saw similar weather to the previous two days, but with a bit stronger wind still blowing out of the south. Something subtle must have changed because Sunday saw a dropoff in both size (96.23 lbs. vs. 129.15 lbs.) and number of fish (47 vs. 56) from Saturday's results. Indeed, there were at least 4 fish over 4 pounds weighed on Saturday, but none on Sunday, and the winning weigh was about 2.5 lbs. less than the previous day.
Having fallen off the horse on Saturday with a mere second place finish, Paul decided to get right back on by claiming first place on Sunday. He again chased the smallies, this time weighing a limit of 14.93, anchored by a 3.83 lb. fish. Second place went to John Shpack who weighed a limit of green fish at 13.58 pounds. Dave Waugh claimed third place and lunker with a largemouth limit that weighed 12.12 pounds and included a 3.91 lb. fish.
The 2-day champion, with a combined weight of 30.77 pounds was Paul, who claimed a nice side pool thanks to his gaudy two-day total.
A little twist on this year's trip was an early start and extended fishing day on Saturday, and an earlier start and end on Sunday. Both worked out great as it not only kept congestion at the ramps to a minimum with competing tournaments, but gave us a better early bite, kept us on the water longer, and got us on the road earlier on Sunday when things wrapped up.
Next up is Brimfield Reservoir in October. Bring your mittens!
Below is a breakdown of the combined weights for both days. Report and photos to follow...
2 DAY TOTALS
| Place | | # Fish | Weight |
| 1. | Paul | 10 | 30.77 |
| 2. | Fred | 10 | 24.47 |
| 3. | Ed | 10 | 23.67 |
| 4. | John S | 10 | 21.93 |
| 5. | Bill | 10 | 21.24 |
| 6. | Dave | 8 | 19.38 |
| 7. | Jeff | 10 | 19.07 |
| 8. | Al Jr. | 7 | 14.06 |
| 9. | Mike | 5 | 13.05 |
| 10. | Nick | 8 | 12.15 |
| 11. | Steve | 7 | 10.84 |
| 12. | John B | 5 | 7.78 |
| 13. | Al Sr. | 4 | 6.49 |
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