June 24-25, 2017

Saratoga & Ballston Lakes

by Gary Menchen

The 2017 WBM Classic is now in the books with Greg Menchen winning his second title holding off a hard charging Rob Lopez by less than half a pound. Fishing Saratoga Lake on Saturday June 24, Greg went through three to four limits of cookie cutter bass culling his sack to a weight of 13.77 lbs. Greg’s approach on Saratoga was to “just start fishing” using multiple lures & presentations generally fishing shallow. The bites became harder to get at Ballston Lake on Sunday. For Greg and most of the other guys, this would be their first time fishing this body of water. Relying on a jig, Greg’s two bass totaling 5.29lbs gave him a two day total of 19.06 lbs.

The second place finisher Rob Lopez had 10.74 on Saratoga and then 7.93 on Ballston to almost catch Greg. Rob generally fishes slow & methodical but figured out on Ballston that the best bite occurred when he “dead-sticked” his Mann’s Jelly Worm for up to a minute near boat docks until the bass could not stand it anymore.

Making it an all Copake trifecta, third place went to Gary Menchen. As did everyone who fished, Gary had his limit on the “fish factory” Saratoga Lake, then caught three Ballston lake bass, two of which were in the last 45 minutes. Gary slowed down to fish plastic worms crawling them on the outside weed edge.

All fished weighed were largemouth bass and as the trend has gone all year long, a different member has won every tournament. A great time was had by all who fished. The format and venues were popular and we stayed over at the motel in Clifton Park. Every one voted to do it again next year.

A big thanks to Big Joe Raguzin for bringing the grill and cooking the burgers, dogs, beans. Slick Rick also helped out with the shopping and with the cold beer. We all chilled out, the weather (after a brief morning shower on Sat) was just perfect the rest of the weekend.

Next on the agenda for the Watershed Bassmasters is our all night tournament on Lake Mahopac on Sat July 8th. Mahopac is fishing really well at this time with large numbers of bass being caught as can be attested by the results during our club reunion last week. Don't miss this one, it's gonna be a dandy.

COMPLETE RESULTS