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.
“It pulled for a minute or so, then came up sloshing the surface with its head out of the water,” Blakeney said.
The Familiar Pond Pays Off
The young angler — who will be studying fish and wildlife biology at nearby Finger Lakes Community College in the new school year — lives just 10 minutes away from the pond. Blakeney noted that he fished the waterbody often with his father Adam while growing up in the area.
“The bank is rocky there, and I thought the bass was gonna take me into the rocks and break my line,” he explained. “But I was able to pull it in, weigh and measure it, make a couple photos and a video. Then I released it.”
Before releasing his catch, Blakeney was able to record the largemouth’s size using equipment he had with him. The bass weighed 8.5 pounds and measured 23.5 inches in length.
One Surprisingly Big Bass
While New York doesn’t keep records for big fish caught from the state’s myriad ponds, Blakeney called the Region 8 DEC office and told them he’d caught a heavy bass from the pond near their headquarters building.
“They told me it was the biggest bass they’d ever heard caught out of that pond,” Blakeney reported. “I’d caught bass there up to five pounds, but not one that size. Best one I’d ever caught before was a seven-pounder at another pond not far from Twin Cedars.”
The New York record largemouth weighed 12 pounds, 6 ounces. James Britenbaugh made that catch in July 2024 from Cayuga Lake — one of the state’s famed Finger Lakes, which lies about 60 miles east of the Twin Cedars Pond where Blakeney caught his largemouth.
“I’d like to get a replica mount of my 8.5-pounder,” he said. “But it’s pretty expensive, and I’m just a student.”
