Paul wins at the Nip with a 5+ kicker

The bite was tough at Lake Nippenicket for Avid's first ever visit to this body of water. Bluebird skies, a high pressure weather system, and very little wind made the fish very skittish and hard to find. Bites seemed to be especially subtle and the fish, especially bigger ones, did not seem eager to engulf anything, particularly fast-moving reaction baits.

As a result of the conditions the event tallied mostly small fish and few of them. Only two limits were weighed, and only two fish over three pounds came in. One of those was Paul Carvalho’s 5.32-pounder that captured the tournament’s lunker award and anchored his winning bag of 10.57 pounds. Unfortunately for Paul it was too little too late, as even a first place finish wasn’t enough for him to overtake Fred Naymie in the Angler of the Year standings—especially since Fred finished second with a 6.70 lb limit. Rounding out the top three was Dave Waugh with 4 fish weighing 5.80 lbs. For Fred, this is his second consecutive Angler of the Year prize. He was the 2015 season champ, too.

On the co-angler side of things, John Boudreau captured his second Co-angler of the Year title in the past three seasons with his finish at The Nip. Not that this event mattered in terms of the co-angler race: John had the title wrapped up even before he fished, but this event closed out the season and made it official.

As for other notable end-of-year milestones, the annual big fish award went to Fred Naymie whose 6.43-pound largemouth from our last event at John s Pond easily withstood the single final test to remain atop the list and get etched into the record books.

Next up: We open the season at Champlain (St. Albans) on July 30-31 with our annual two-day event.