Charles River - Brighton/Watertown, MA Fishing Report

7/12/14 - MA B.A.S.S. Nation Pro-Am @ Charles River Brighton

4th and last tournament of the 2014 season for this trail. Up for grabs at tourneys end is AOY, CAOY, Top 10 Boater & Co-Angler TOC qualifications, and 3 spots on the State Team for next years Divisional's (Top 2 Boaters, and Top Co-Angler). After the last tournament in June, I had dropped to 6 place overall after an mistake filled tournament. That left me 11 points down from the leading Co-Angler. Pretty tough lead to catch considering each a 1st place finish is 200 points, 2nd is 199, 3rd 198, etc. After Thursday's prefish, I knew I was on fish, just needed good execution, and a little luck.

So draw is done morning of at the ramp, 19 Boaters, 14 Co-Anglers. I draw boat # 2, Woody and his older Ranger. We started the morning not far from the ramp. An hour in of fishing jigs Woody has one, and I have one about 14oz. We make a cross to the other shoreline, and I make a long cast with soft swimbait 1/4oz weighted swimbait hook next to some grass and as soon as I start the retrieve fish on. 1lb 7oz in the box. We make another pass on the 1st spot, and Woody picks up another, and also breaks off toward the end of the spot. As he is re-trying, we are drifting out into the river chanel. So I start chucking that swimbait up river, and retrieving with the current. About 6 casts in I see one chase it down and hammer it 10ft from the boat. 2lb 5oz in the box. Must have been a cruise, because we tried to duplicate it a few times with no luck. We cross the river again I pick up a short on the jig, and Woody pulls a good one out from under a dock. Short time later I see a spot a just know there is a fish on, so out comes the chatterbait for the 1st time. 1st cast it about knocks the rod out of my hands. 1lb 11oz in the box. Try the 1st spot again with no luck. almost 11am at this point, time to head down river. Start at a shoreline stretch I had confident in with the chatterbait. 10 casts in I hook into my limit fish, 1lb 6oz in the box. A short while later I hook into another 1lb 6oz to cull out the 14oz. A little later Woody get his 4th, a decent one, and my chatterbait get drilled again by what would be my best of the day, 2lb 6oz culls out one of the 1lb 6oz. Woody would finally get his limit after some line malfunctions, and I caught some other fish that didn't help the cause. With the High Tide turning at about noontime, the bite really slowed for us after that. But we both had our limits so that was good. Spent the rest of the looking for a kicker, but no dice. When the scales closed there was a lot of anglers shaking there heads. Tops on the boaters 4th was a limit for 10lbs, 3rd was a limit for 10.23lbs, 2nd was a limit for 10.50lbs, and 1st was Jbigins (Joe) with a 12.79lb limit, while also taking AOY, one of the State Team boater spots, and TOC qualification, nice job. Woody had 8.20lbs for 7th place, and my buddy John from the club finished 6th with 8.55lb with the boater lunker for 3-1/2lbs. On the Co-Angler side 3rd was a limit for 5.99lbs, 2nd was a limit for 7.18lbs with 2.80lb co-angler lunker, and 1st with a 9.19lbs limit was me! This was my 2nd win of the season on this trail!

In the overall standing I made it close, I missed CAOY by 2 points, as the leading co-angler only got one fish finishing 10th today. I would needed him to finish 13th to jump ahead. Oh well, I finished 2nd overall for the 2nd year in a row, also qualifying for the TOC 3 years in a row. I'm happy with that, but not satisfied. I see plenty of room for growth. It was a fun season , and I look forward to the TOC in Oct!

• Added By: meat7gtk on 07/17/14 03:20 PM
• Location: Charles River - Brighton/Watertown, MA
• Report Date: 7/12/2014
• # of Hotspots: 1
• # of Photos: 1
• # of Fish Caught: 15
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