My brother and partner, Jon, and I fished two recent tournaments on the Mactaquac Headpond on the Saint John River system in New Brunswick. The first event was the NB Pro Bass open event launching out of Woodstock on May 12. We had no problem catching a limit at our first stop including a couple of our keepers. Our biggest four fish were in the 2-1/2 lb. range. We just couldn't find any 3 lbers. We had 11.70 lbs, good for a 7th place finish.
The second event was the NB Sportfishing Association Event out of Nackawic on May 19/20. Again, we had no problem catching our limit at our first spot on Saturday, but no big fish. At our second stop, I cast off the front of the boat and Jon casts off the back. His first cast he hooks and lands the eventual Day 1 Lunker, a beauty at 3.85 lbs. We had just over 11 lbs on day 1. Day 2 proved to be a little tougher for us. Again, lots of small fish, mostly males, but no big females. We had about 8 lbs. in the livewell when we tried a little cove we had found last year. Last year we caught 4 fish off one little tree sticking into the water. Early afternoon on Sunday, we stopped in and within a couple minutes, spotted a whole school of bass sunning themselves on the bank near that same tree. Within about 5 minutes we landed 10 or 12 fish using a variety of baits we had rigged and ready, one of which was a leech coloured Lunkerhunt Lunker Stick. We managed to upgrade our limit to just over 10 lbs. to finish with 21 lbs, good for a 6th place finish overall. The weather was hot and sunny and the water warmed up considerably during the two days. Most guys seemed to be fishing shallow and were catching lots of small male fish, but very few females. They seemed to holding in deeper water waiting to come in to nest. The few big fish caught seemed to be the first of the females that moved in. I expect anyone going out for a fun fish this week will have a ball.