Still the Pits...No Matter How You Slice It

I would suggest that if I had asked for a show of hands today, the response would have been...perhaps with one exception...unanimous that the last qualifier of our 2022 season could only be described as "tough." After eight hours on the water, those eight anglers in five boats only managed to bring 15 fish to the scales. The cumulative total weight was 29.88 pounds, which translates into 1.99 pounds per fish.

Even the fella with the only limit likely would agree with my earlier assessment of the day being "tough," because he said he only caught eight fish during the eight hours. As any fisherman will tell you, one fish per hour is slow...so slow, as a matter of fact, that an old codger like me might catch himself falling asleep, with the rod in his hand. Thankfully, however, the fella with today's limit is many years younger than yours truly.

That being said, let me report that Jim Calhoun is the young angler who topped everyone today with a five-fish limit weighing 14.27 pounds. His kicker fish tipped the scales at 4.93 pounds.

Finishing in 2nd place was Rob Peppers, who weighed four bass for a total weight of 6.87 pounds. His big fish weighed 2.80 pounds. More importantly, however, is the fact that Rob repeated his good fortunes of 2020 and finished as Angler of the Year. He had a grand total weight this year of 167.87 pounds, compared to 133.41 pounds in 2020.

The remainder of the field finished as follows:

     * The brothers team of Andy and Chris Morath, three fish, total weight 5.41 pounds, 1.89-pound big fish.

     * The team of Gary Coderre and Dave Anderson, three fish, total weight 3.33 pounds, 1.29-pound big fish.

     * The team of Steve Bailey and Dennis Dean didn't weigh any fish, but they did say they had one keeper that they released beforehand.

Congratulations to all of today's winners, and thanks to those who showed up to participate. Looks like we'll have a small Classic field this year, considering that only 14 anglers fished the requisite seven tournaments to qualify. That season-ending tournament is scheduled to occur next weekend, Oct. 15 and 16.

One Last Cast

Speaking of our two-day Classic tournament, I thought it might be interesting to see what it has taken to win this event in past years. So I broke open my records notebook and took a peek. Here are the final first-place (total weight), big-fish (weight), and seasonal lunker (weight) tallies for the past 11 years:

                                                      Year           TW              BF            SL

                                                      2010        No Classic til 2011        6.12                          

                                                      2011          15.37          2.75          5.06

                                                      2012          16.78          3.67          5.71

                                                      2013          26.37          4.78          6.89

                                                      2014          25.32          4.30          7.15

                                                      2015          29.63          4.23          4.72

                                                      2016          24.18          6.51          5.43

                                                      2017          32.69          5.19          6.82

                                                      2018          27.73          5.15          7.68

                                                      2019          23.26          5.18          7.04

                                                      2020          28.13          5.70          6.93

                                                      2021          28.09          5.34          7.53

I doubt that ol' Dewey ever thought that what he started would continue this long. Admittedly, it takes some effort to keep a program like this running, but I also recall an occasion about four or so years ago when some kin of Dewey's saw me and asked that I give a big "well done" to everyone who has had a hand in this endeavor. Words of kindness like that...in my opinion...make all of this very worthwhile. It's the very least we can do for someone who gave so much of himself while he was here with us.

Current Overall Statistics