06/15/09,
Dear Avon Angler members and guests,
Once again it has been too long since I last wrote a newsletter. You will have to accept my apology, but finding time for the “extra” stuff isn’t getting any easier… I certainly hope all is well each of you and your families. One past member who has definitely not been doing well is our friend John McGough. John was involved in a bad automobile accident in the early spring and after a few weeks in critical condition with a severe head injury, is on a long, slow road back to regaining his quality of life. Please keep thoughts of him in mind when you jump in your boats in the coming weeks and do your best not to take the fortunate lives we live for granted, because they can change in a split second… We look forward to John’s full recovery and seeing him at the launch sometime soon.
A lot of events have taken place since I last wrote that pretty much encompass the entire first half of the AAU schedule. I apologize to those winners and will do my best to now give them their credit which they worked hard to accomplish. I would first like to thank Gus Buckman for once again heading up the Euchre tournaments that so many people have come to enjoy each and every winter. Gus typically hosts 25-40 people on 6 different Sundays throughout the winter and total of 63 individuals participated in at least one event. Lauren Rothrock won the season-long points championship. Congrats Lauren.
AAU once again held three ice fishing events at Silver, Honeoye, and Conesus Lakes. The annual Loon Lake event was cancelled due to weather and questionable ice. 43 fishermen and women participated in the first event with close to a dozen youths involved. Jeff Snyder II from Warsaw won the Bluegill/Sunfish Division with 2.06 pounds for 5 fish. Warren Goodenow of Warsaw blew away he field in the Perch Division with a 5 fish weight of 2.52 pounds. Paul Wingrove of Williamsport, PA won the Pike Division with a 6.31 pound northern. Ryan Skelly of Perry squeaked out a victory in the Youth Division by .03 pounds over Robert Abbot and Josh Norton, both of Geneseo.
The club then held it’s largest hardwater event of the year on Conesus Lake where we had 98 participants of all ages including 12 youths enjoy a great day of fishing on our home lake. David Haddad of Livonia won the Bluegill/Sunfish Division with a 5 fish bag of 2.15 pounds. Jeff Shade of Leroy won the Perch Division with the best bag of perch weighing 1.49 pounds. Mike Brewster of Geneseo walked away with the Northern Pike Division with a 12.22 pound trophy. Dustin Teeter of Geneseo squeaked out a Youth Division win over Robby Abbot of Geneseo and Jeremy Gamble of Hilton by .04 pounds for his 5 fish limit.
The last Open event was a makeup held on the day immediately following the Conesus event. The timing of this proved to detrimental to turnout and we only had 22 participants for the day. That being said, someone always wins and that was the case here as well. Jeffrey Snyder II of Warsaw won the Bluegill/Sunfish Division with 3.16 pounds for his 5 fish limit. Jeff Shade of Leroy won the Perch Division with 2.77 pounds for 5. Mike Dusablon of Dansville won the Walleye Division with a 2.40 pound fish. Dustin Teeter once again proved that he will be contender for years to come winning the Youth Division with a 0.90 pound limit of panfish.
Avon Anglers then entered unfamiliar waters hosting a high dollar ice event for the first time. Honeoye Lake was selected due to its reputation for giving up larger panfish than the surrounding lakes. 17 teams entered the event and battled for some serious cash prizes which were given to the teams with the best 15 fish combination of up to 5 perch, 5 bluegill/sunfish and 5 crappie. This admittedly posed a great challenge for team as they had to decide what species to chase and for how long. I was and still am very optimistic about the turnout seen for this event. 17 may not sound like much, but when I started the Perchmasters event 11 years ago, I had 7 boats at my first tournament and peaked in 2005 with 84 boats. I have very high hopes that with some solid advertisement, we can build this to a 30 team event in 2010 and even larger in the years to come. Chris Durfee and Jeff Snyder II won the event going away with a 6.12 pound bag and the tournament lunker of 0.73 pounds which was a bluegill. Everyone hears about those pails of 10-11” bluegills that sometimes come off of Honeoye at first ice, but come mid-winter, it’s a different beast and It takes great skill to even come off with a meal let alone quality fish most days. This event will once again be back on Honeoye in 2010 and I for one can’t wait to fish it!
The club then moved on to its 2009 Trout circuit and I had the pleasure of running the 1st event of the season out of Woodville on Canandaigua Lake. The forecast was for tough north winds, but Mother Nature gave the guys and girls who entered about 90 minutes of quality weather before it really started to kick. There wasn’t a lot of fish entered, but there was definitively quality. There were as many nice brown trout entered as there were lake trout! Nobody could touch Rod Henry’s lake trout of 12.26 pounds. His partner Rick Flurshutz, also of Arkport, had the 2nd Place fish which was a brown trout and weighed 7.94 pounds. Third place went to Brent Beeley of Honeoye with a 7.81 pound trout.
The circuit then shifted back to Keuka Lake at Branchport with hopes of better weather after the first scheduled event there turned out to be another wind-filled spectacular. After several attempts to launch proved ugly, the event was cancelled This time though, the weather was working out and 44 people finally got to enjoy some good trolling weather. Jake Rice left no question as to the winner on this day with an 11.04 pound Lake Trout. 2nd Place went to John Pietzold with a 6.88 pound trout. Chad Brutsman of Branchport took 3rd with a trout weighing 6.76 pounds.
The final event of the year took place back in Woodville and the crowds were thinning as thoughts were apparently turning to turkeys and walleyes. Young Aaron Ward of Bloomfield returned to his 2008 form and found himself on top at the end of the day with a 10.32 pound Lake Trout. Mike Poklinkowski of Hemlock took 2nd Place with a 8.95 pound trout, while Ron Goodman of Canandaigua took 3rd with a 8.21 pound laker.
Congrats to the trout winners and thanks to all who participated in these 3 events.
With the month of May upon us, Avon Anglers got busy holding its annual Pike and Walleye events on Conesus Lake. First though, we held a Poor Boy Walleye event on Honeoye Lake on the first full night of the season. We had a very nice turnout of 24 fishermen and great weather. The bite was good, but size was tough to come by. In the end though, Joe Hess of Hornell won the event with a 2.04 pound walleye. Dan Warczok took 2nd with a 1.97 pound ‘eye. This is something I intend to hold next year again as I truly believe there is no shortage of interest in fishing for walleye on Honeoye Lake... Then we were off to Conesus and its tremendous fishery. I have given seminars about the lake the last few years and it’s incredible growth rates, but I challenge anyone to tell me about a body of water that contains more 10 pound pike and 5 pound largemouth (per acre) than this fish factory we have right in our backyard. This lake is absolutely phenomenal. 55 fishermen showed up to fish the first event and the bite was on. The weigh in was equally impressive as the winning walleye was 8.46 pounds and brought to the scales by Bill Meyers of Dansville. John Schirmer of Caledonia was 2nd with a 7.12 pound ‘eye. The lunker pike was caught by Dave Strong of Rush and weighed a very impressive 12.37 pounds. Kyle Gordon Smith of East Rochester was 2nd with a 10.09 pound Northern. The club returned to Conesus 2 weeks later for our second Pike and Walleye event. The forecast was not optimal and probably hurt turnout, but 23 fishermen entered and some very nice fish came across the scales. Chuck Hughes of Rush took 1st Place Walleye with a 9.58 pound trophy. 2nd Place went to Jason Schirmer of Avon with a 8.54 pound eye. The best pike of the night also went to Chuck Hughes with a 9.30 pound pike! Chuck really had it going on this night! The 2nd Place pike went to Don Vanarsdale of Henrietta with a 7.52 pound fish.
The month of May also found the club running it’s incredibly well attended Kid’s Pond events at both Powder Mill Park in Pittsford and Tinker Park in Henrietta. These events are both so highly thought of in the community and allow almost 200 youths from our community the chance to either ifsh competitively (at Powder Mill) or very often times catch their first fish (at Tinker Park). Both efforts require a considerable amount of member assistance and many thanks go out to John Benson, Bob McElwain, Kenny McGee, and Dennis McGee as well as many others who made these events possible. You can see the pictures of these great events on the Home Page. If you have any interest in becoming part of either of these events in 2010, please let one of the people listed above or myself know about it prior to next spring. You can never have too much help at either of these events.
That concludes the first half of our fishing year. Now we look forward to our many bass events and based on some popular changes and a very attractive schedule, we expect very good turnouts in 2009. The largest change was of course the cost and the respective prize structure. For years complaints have been rampant about our paybacks (and perceived lack thereof) which really wasn’t fair as most comparisons were not apples to apples. Too many people do not take into consideration the potential to win Classic prizes that pay $1500, $1000, and $500 respectively or the Angler of the Year award which in itself pays $1000 to the top performing bass team of the year. This money does not come out of thin air, but part comes from tournament sponsors and the rest allocated from the individual open events. The other open trails in the area don’t have these features and return the bulk of their fees on the day of the events. Both approaches are fine with me, but for those looking to pursue a season long points race and fish a Classic format, I think we offer a pretty intriguing bass circuit. After a considerable surveying of our participants, the Tournament Committee decided acted on a proposal to increase the team fee from $60 to $80 for 2009. This amounts to $10 per man for most teams which is reasonable considering what we are able to provide the participating teams. We are now going to an award format that always pays out the Top 4 weights and abandoning the format where we paid down 10% of the field which tended to dilute the winnings. We also reverted back to a single lunker which was by far the popular opinion. These changes will allow us to pay out some very handsome cash awards at our points events this summer. In the even we get over 50 boats in any single event (we have seen that often at Sodus, Conesus, and Keuka Lakes historically) we will be paying out in excess of $1000 first place and over $500 for the lunker bass. Another change we made which is a first for the club is to go to one body of water more than once in a given year. We believed that going where we have had our best turnouts the last 2 seasons made the most sense, so we will now visit Sodus Bay in our 1st Points event in June as well as our 5th Points event in August. This fishery has been nothing short of tremendous the last couple years and it gives the participants the option of easily running into the main lake or other bays within range of their rigs. Connelly’s Cove Restaurant has once again made themselves available for our weigh ins which make it so much easier than the Town Launch when we host such a large field. Thanks to Jim Gonyeau for setting this up for us. I would encourage teams to consider other launches than the Town Launch to put their rigs in and then run to the launch for registration and blast off. There is a launch right in the Village of Sodus Point, one at the south end bridge, as well as a couple private marina launches available as well. For more details on our 2009 Bass Circuit, please look over the 2009 Bass Letter link on the Home Page.
Another popular change for 2009 is going back to our Labor Day date for our Dash for Cash This is the event where we host boats from all over the state on a day where there not one other conflicting tournament and hundreds of anglers wishing they could fish something. We made the mistake of going back a day to Sunday in 2008 and it hurt attendance, but we will not make that mistake again. Based on the level of interest we are seeing for this event held out of Oneida Shores County Launch on Oneida Lake, we could easily be hosting 70 or more boats after hosting 50 in 2007 there. It is indeed a large lake and one could do a lot of running around if they choose, but the fishery in the Western Basin is fantastic and one does not have to burn $100 in gas at this event to contend.
It has still not been determined if we will raise the entry fees for the fall Ironman series from $60 to $80 per team. We will see how the points series goes and take input throughout the summer from our participants. We are leaning toward not raising it, but if a majority voices support for the change, we will listen and act accordingly.
Thanks for your time to visit the site and we hope to see you in the coming months at one of our events.
Good fishing,
Ron