Watershed Bassmasters

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WBM Event #5 - Congamond Lakes

Doucette Continues at Congamond 

Congamond Lakes

May 20, 2018

by Gary Menchen

On Sunday May 20th the Watershed Bassmasters traveled to the CT-MA border to the three connected impoundments known as Congamond Lakes. Launching out of the Town of Southwick, we expected the spawn to be in full swing. The green fish were up sitting shallow, but proved to be darn near impossible to entice. Most of the spooky fish bolted from their beds when the anglers cast baits even when they did so with the utmost stealth. A couple guys choose not to play this cat and mouse game and they were the ones who were successful.


And the Congamond Lakes champion is none other than Jordon Doucette. JD showed up minus his "Paul Bunyan" beard but it didn't matter one bit as he culled his way up to the winning bag of 14.85lbs. Doucette also had the day’s lunker, a fat 4.66lb pre-spawn largemouth bass. Initially Jordon tried for spawners that he could see but that plan did not work out at all. Moving slightly deeper he picked up his 1/2oz chatterbait and covered water. With his T/M on 70 he fished non-stop and caught 9 or 10 fish from different areas around the lake. With his 4th win of the year Doucette has opened up a commanding lead in the 2018 race for the Watershed Bassmasters AOY.


Second place was garnered by "Slick Rick" Faubert who culled several fish and brought 10.02lbs to the scales. Rick spent the entire day in the North Pond and he too was frustrated at first with his inability to entice the bedding fish he could see. Backing off to deeper water Rick pulled out a Ned Rig which caught most of his fish for him. Keying on every tree he found, he sometimes had to cast multiple times but this payed off and Faubert was the day's runner-up. After fishing as a rider for his first couple of years in the club, Rick is finding out about the benefits of being a boater and calling his own shots.
"Big Joe" Raguzin claimed the 3rd place check with 4 fish weighing in at 7.62lbs. Fishing used water from the back off Doucette's boat, Joe resorted to finessing a Ned Rig. He fished clean and he never had his limit fish on but, four bass was good enough for 3rd place.
Rounding out the top 5 were Bryan Gudd with a 7.49lb limit and Gary Menchen who's 3 fish weighed in at 6.6llbs.


That concludes our 5 tournament CT start of the season (actually we do go back to Candlewood for an all-nighter in July). Our NY portion of the trail begins on Lake Champlain Sat June 9. There certainly should still be plenty of bed-fish to be caught and the top-water bite will be in full swing. The following day, Sunday June 10th the NYS BASS Chapter Federation opens on Lake Champlain. A good number of Watershed boys are staying over to fish that event. Good luck to all of them.