The Community Classic - Week 2
The action really started heating up this week! Finally, some warmer weather over the past weekend caused the freshwater fish to begin to move into their spring patterns. All of the community boys seized the opportunity, and everyone now has a few points on the board. The first week of the classic is always my favorite, for two reasons. First - the action is always electric, because pretty much every fish will place on the leader board. Second, we start to see glimpses of the strategies that each contestant will employ. This week was full of non-stop action as heated words were exchanged, fish were knocked out of the competition, and mistakes were made!
Let’s start with Chase. A man of few words, Chase usually prefers to leap into action. And leap he did, catching a few lovely Brookies and Bows at 2:35pm on a Friday. Why he wasn’t at work, I suppose we’ll never know. Rather than measure each fish out, he tossed ‘em back, stating “I threw ‘em all back without measuring; they are disqualified.” Right on Chase, right on. He hit the same spot on Saturday, this time with tape measure in hand, and managed a first place stocker brookie at 12.5”. This fish was enough to net him 6 points, and might be a tricky one to beat in the near-term!
Please excuse the sorry state of the fish in the picture; they actually eat Brook Trout in Pennsylvania, or so I’m told.
I decided to do some fly fishing this weekend. Unfortunately, the rainy winter and heavy snowmelt in the mountains is causing most of my local rivers to run too fast, so I decided to check out a new river called the Nissitissit. I’ll tell you what; they should call it the Never-Fish-It! About 4 hours of hard work amounted to two small Fallfish and 0 Rainbows, which I heard were plentiful in the river (but were not, in actuality). Still, a Fallfish is a 1 pointer, so I’ll take what I can get!
On Sunday, I linked up with Brendan at another local pond that had just recently been stocked with Bows, Browns, Brookies and even Tiger Trout. Breen had just the previous day caught a 16” pickerel in a local Duxbury pond; definitely nothing to sneeze at! The key to his success, as quoted, was “live Golden Shiners stuffed with neon power bait.” Fact or fiction, the result was undeniable. While we found the pond to be loaded with Bluegill so large you could barely palm them like a basketball, we didn’t see so much as a single trout rise. Oh well, I’ll take a 9.5” Bluegill any day of the week. More points for me!
Look at the belly on this sucker!
While we were at the pond, we got word that Declan was out for blood, catching a 14” Largemouth and a 14.5” Brown! Unfortunately, the Brown wasn’t big enough to oust Grady’s second place fish from the previous weekend, but the Largemouth did place first (briefly).
Meanwhile, down in Rhode Island, Christian was catching fresh schoolie Striped Bass by the dozen. Although he alleged that he caught 30 or more, he elected not to measure any. A wise choice, by my estimate, because they’ll most definitely be knocked out of contention once some larger migratory fish show up. After his resounding success in the salt, Christian hit up a local pond in the ‘yak and managed to land a nice 15” Largemouth, beating out Declan’s “first place” fish only hours later. This wasn’t even his biggest achievement, since shortly after that he landed a donkey of a Pickerel at a staggering 19”! Declan and Brendan were no doubt fuming at the news.
Pike-Pickerel hybrid? Pikerel?
Last but certainly not least, Grady decided to play it cool this weekend, electing not to fish on Saturday. However, late on Sunday night a text came through with an attached image and a caption that simply read “No measurement :(“ I opened the photo to find an absolute hog at the bottom of his canoe. A nearby bait net told me that this 4+ lb behemoth largie inhaled a live shiner, while a nearby can of PBR told me that he was drunk and forgot the tape measure. While Grady didn’t get to enter this fish in the competition, he’ll no doubt do everything in his power to catch it again.
I’ll bet he’ll remember the tape measure next time!
At the end of the day, Grady remains in first place, largely because nobody could unseat his radioactive trout from the previous weekend. Christian claimed #2 with his sizeable pond predators, and Chase’s brook trout gave him both third place and indigestion! Tune in next week to see how the standings have changed!
