Soon after dawn on June 25, college student Zachary Blakeney walked the shoreline edge of Twin Cedars Pond. It’s a spot near New York’s Region 8 Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) headquarters, located in Livingston County at the town of Avon.
“Early that morning I caught a couple small bass but nothing special,” the 17-year-old told Wired2fish. “But a little after 8 a.m., I walked along the shore to the tip of a peninsula where the water is pretty deep.”
A Promising Start
Blakeney continued: “I’d been using a white ChatterBait in that area ever since I saw a school of crappies near there. That’s what I cast out that morning using a medium-heavy spinning outfit with 12-pound test monofilament.”
He let the lure sink a bit in the stained pond water, then started a deep retrieve. That’s when he got a solid strike, set the hook, and the fish immediately ripped drag from his reel…