Hot weather and sunny skies filled the air over Long Pond, Lakeville as the Massachusetts Teams competed in the third tournament of the 2012 season. Shallows shoals, islands, and weed-laden coves offered largemouth bass a wide variety of shelter.

 

Team Shea would continue to lead the AOY race, however several teams edged closer to the likeable father and son team. “ Dad and I just kept rotating through several weedy areas with down timber,” informed Jason Shea. Adding, “The bass seemed to be very sluggish, after the spawn, but Dad’s patience is never ending! He worked his baits especially a Senko rigged ‘Team Shea’ style flawlessly.” Landing a 5th place finish with 8.30 lbs. Team Shea proved they were the team to beat for the 2012 AOY Title.

 

According to the locals Long Pond, Lakeville harvests some large bass, but few make it to tournament weigh-in? “Normal winning tournament weights average between nine to ten pounds, anything over that is considered a big bag,” says USA Bassin contender Kevin Cummings. That is until the USA Bassin MA Division anglers came to Lakeville!

 

Thirteen of the nineteen contending teams managed a five bass limit, while the Top-5 Teams would have been considered tournament champs at most any other Long Pond Lakeville event! As teams passed through the weigh-in, most claimed to have caught many short bass all day long. Techniques ranged from jigs, drop-shots to swimbaits.

 

Claiming a third place finish with 10.78 lbs., Chris Blais and Dave Dardanelli, anchored their 5-bass limit with a 3.35 lb. largemouth. “Jigs and crankbaits were our go to baits,” revealed Blais. Dardanelli added they only culled once and bites were few and far between! Collecting 98 points, ‘Team DOC” lunged forward into second place behind Team Shea in the AOY Race!

 

Local favorites, brothers Ryan and Derek Taylor landed in second place tipping the scales with a 5-Bass limit of 11.07 lbs. “This is unbelievable! We come in with what usually is a winning limit, anchored with a 3.85 lb. hog and don’t win either the tournament nor the Lunker pool?” Adding as they congratulated the Long Pond Champions, “Wilson and Chapin deserve to win they have an outstanding bag of largemouths!”

 

Team Taylor may have ended in second, but this team put on quite a show for the shoreline crowd! According to several competitors, Team Taylor was drifting a deep weed line where on just about every drift they landed a bass. The water front homeowners started watching and applauding as the brothers caught-culled and continued to catch bass after bass. 

 

With a crowd of onlookers surrounding the weigh-in tent Keith Wilson and Pat Chapin handed the weigh-master their 5-bass limit. When their Lunker largemouth was weighed first and 4.76 lbs. was called out high-fives and applauds echoed across Long Pond. Asked what their 5-bass might weigh the team replied, “Just weigh them... Please.” Tipping the scales at 14.13 lbs. Wilson and Chapin blew away the competition by over three pounds, secure 100 points toward the Regional Championship, and collected checks for 1st Place and Lunker.

 

Keith Wilson elaborated on their huge bag of bass. “We had established a frog pattern earlier in the week when practicing, but that just didn’t work today? Pat suggested we continue to search the weed bed as the bass may have relocated. Sure enough within the first few cast our Lunker devoured my spook and we continued to establish our winning limit.” Chapin added, “We utilized a one two punch with weightless worms and topwater baits all day long.”