Fred finds elusive 6-pounder, wins at Johns Pond

It took a long time -- 9 years to be exact -- but someone finally caught a 6-pound fish in an Avid tournament. The long-awaited honor went to Fred Naymie who caught the trophy at our John's Pond event. Not only were bragging rights at stake with the fish, but a substantial prize pool, tournament lunker money and place payouts, the club's annual big fish award, and the club lunker record!

It remains to be seen whether Fred's fish will earn him the annual big fish prize, but he's safely socked away all the other kudos and payouts with the 6.43 pound largemouth. The fish was part of a mixed bag that weighed 16-plus pounds and easily cemented the tournament win and lunker, as well as a place in the Avid record books for biggest fish caught to date.

Second place was awarded to Nick Mulcahy who, fishing from the back of the boat, brought in a limit of largemouth weighing 12.2 pounds. In third was Paul Carvahlo with a limit that weighed 11.77. Everyone who fished caught fish and there were eight limits among the ten contestants.

It's interesting to note that, after having stood for more than 8 years, the club big fish record has been broken three times in less than two years, jumping from Eric Femiak's 5.45 in 2005, to Mike Caudle's 5.80 in 2014. Just three events later Bill Wright's 5.92 moved to the top spot in early 2015. Now, a mere one year on, Fred's fish is king. Hopefully, this trend of big fish will continue.

As for the conditions, the event set up as a spawn tournament, with lots of buck smallies on the beds and easy to catch. Very few big females were spotted on beds though. Largemouth were moving up shallow in the big lake but not many were bedding yet. They were further along in the back pond and hard on the beds in that darker, warmer water. The day was pretty calm and comfortable for most of the event and visibility was great for sight fishing. Toward the end of the day it clouded up and cooled down as the southwest wind increased, but it hardly made for difficult fishing.