TOWER, Minn. – The EverStart Series Northern Division will kick off the 2003 season June 4-7 when Lake Vermilion plays host to the $3.88 million bass-tournament trail. The event, which will feature as many as 200 pros and 200 co-anglers, will pay out as much as $256,825 in cash and prizes, including a top pro award worth as much as $61,900.
The tournament marks the first time the EverStart Series has visited Lake Vermillion, and anglers who prefer fishing structure will likely excel. The lake is made up of a variety of almost endless structure, including shoreline rubble, docks, points, grass, reeds and rock piles. Plastics in crawfish color patterns are likely to be the bait of choice, with spinner baits and crankbaits also effective along shorelines and over rocky structures.
Fortune Bay Resort and Casino in Tower will host daily takeoffs at safe light, and weigh-ins will also be held there beginning at 3 p.m.
Opening-round anglers compete for two days to determine the 20 anglers in each division who advance to Friday’s semifinal round based on their two-day accumulated weight. Pros and co-anglers start at zero Friday and compete for one of 10 slots in Saturday’s final round. Weights are again cleared for Saturday’s competition, and anglers compete for position and prize money.
The winning pro is guaranteed $10,000 cash and an Evinrude- or Yamaha-powered Ranger 519VS Comanche bass boat equipped with EverStart batteries, a Minn Kota trolling motor and Garmin electronics. If the winner is the original owner of a Ranger boat, Ranger will award an additional $10,000 cash bonus for a total prize package of $61,900. The winning co-angler is guaranteed $5,000 cash. If the co-angler winner is a registered Ranger boat owner, Ranger will also award a new Ranger 519VS Comanche bass boat.
The EverStart Series features a pro/co-angler format with pros supplying the boats, fishing from the front deck against other pros and controlling boat movement. Co-anglers fish from the back deck and compete against other co-anglers. Every angler who receives weight credit in a tournament earns points that determine angler standings. Two hundred points are awarded to the winner, 199 points for second, 198 points for third, and so on.
Designed as a pathway to the $5.76 million Wal-Mart FLW Tour, the world’s most lucrative bass-tournament series, the EverStart Series features four divisions – Central, Eastern, Northern and Western – with four regular-season events each. The season culminates with the $335,975 EverStart Series Championship, which will be held Oct. 29-Nov. 1 on Old Hickory Lake near Gallatin, Tenn. The event will be broadcast to 55 million subscribers of the Outdoor Life Network on the “FLW Outdoors” television series. Central Division anglers who finish in the top 40 in the final points standings are eligible to compete in the championship.
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