The 2016 season is behind us. And let’s just start by saying it was an interesting season.
Ed with lunkers from season opener
First, this was the first season in the history of SRIBA where we canceled a tournament and didn’t make it up. So we fished an abbreviated 8 tournament schedule, instead of the usual 9 tourneys.
We also had some tourneys with very low winning weights, such as our night tourney at Gardner Lake, with a winning weight of 8.50 lbs. and a tourney lunker of 2.39 lbs. The worst tourney of the year, though, was at the Quinebaug River, with a 6.80 lb. winning weight.
Final weight for Isaac Claros, who came from behind to grab the AOY title at the very last tournament was 78.51, about 20 lbs. less than the AOY weight for 2015.
As a whole, the club weighed in 194 bass, which is also lower than normal. For whatever reason, the fishing just seemed to be a bit off across the entire tournament schedule.
Curt Snow with two of the bass from a winning bag of 19.81 lbs.
On the bright side, though, no matter where we fished, most people managed to find some fish and bring them to the scales. For example, at our tournament at Indian lake we brought in over 200 bass! But that was because we had a request from RI DEM to keep all bass caught so they could take scale samples and weights at the end of the tourney 🙂
Also on the much brighter side, we did have a few tourneys with some really good bags weighed in. At our opening night tourney at Amos Lake, the winning bag weighed just shy of 20 lbs. (19.81 lbs.) for Curt Snow. This was the heaviest bag of the season for the entire club.
That Amos Lake tourney also had the highest total weight for the club as a whole, at 87.97 lbs.! And Amos also produced the most limits for the club in a single tourney, with 5 anglers bringing 5 fish to the scale.
Isaac with a kicker from the season opener
When everything was said and done, Isaac Claros had made a come-from-behind surge during the last few tournaments to claim the AOY title for the second consecutive year.
Isaac had a great season, with 8 top-5 finishes out of 8 tournaments! 5 of those 8 were 2nd place finishes, with 2 wins to end the season. Isaac weighed in 33 bass for the entire season, giving him just a bit higher than a 4 fish average per tournament. Not too shabby. Isaac also claimed the top points score for the season.
And in the end, the points race for the Classic qualification did some serious shuffling. The following 5 anglers were at the top and will fish in the club Classic in June of 2016, at Pataganset Lake.
Isaac – 236
Curt – 235
Andy – 220
Mitz – 197
Bob – 169
The points race this past season was interesting from day one, with people jockeying for that top 5 right up until the very last tournament of the year.
So that pretty much sums it up! The schedule for 2017 has already been set and SRIBA members are settling into hibernation mode for the winter months.
Bring on the Spring!