Quick Bites: EverStart Championship, Day 3
2001 EverStart Series Championship
Pickwick Lake, Florence, Ala.
Day three, Pro semifinals, Co-angler finals
Swims like a fish, thinks like a fish … Co-angler Renee Flesh of Edwardsburg, Mich., became the first woman ever to win a national bass fishing championship with her victory Friday in the 2001 EverStart Series Championship. She bested a bad day with her 4-pound total weight for two fish, catching almost two-thirds of the total weight posted by the entire Co-angler Division. Asked about her role in leading the increasing women’s movement on the pro bass tour, Flesh said, “There’s no gender in angling. The fish don’t know who you are, and you’re just fishing against the fish.” She likened her approach to fishing to the days when she used to swim competitively. “In swimming, you compete against the clock,” she said. “Now I’m just competing against the fish.”
What a difference a year makes … All 10 co-angler finalists combined for a total of three fish caught today weighing 6 pounds, 6 ounces. (Two of those were Flesh’s, the third was second-place Jeffery Carman‘s single 2-pound, 6-ounce largemouth.) That weight is almost 10 pounds less than the winning weight caught by last year’s EverStart Series Challenge winner Wesley Burnett, who also happened to finish eighth in the championship this week. In 2000 Burnett caught 16 pounds even in the finals at Cypress Gardens. … The 10 pro semifinalists combined for a total weight of 28 pounds, 14 ounces. The last time Pickwick Lake hosted an Operation Bass pro event, the 2000 Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Rick Clunn caught more than half that weight by himself with his semifinal-round tally of 15 pounds, 12 ounces. Clunn went on to win the event.
You can lead a fish to water, but you can’t make him bite … Or something like that. Three out of 10 pros and eight out of 10 co-anglers – a record – caught no keeper bass in the semifinals. One of the main reasons for the extremely stingy fishing here this week has been the water level on the Wilson, Wheeler and Pickwick Lake reservoirs. “They haven’t pulled the water down yet,” said Alabama pro Greg Pugh, who qualified for the finals in second place with a two-bass weight of 6 pounds, 2 ounces. “They usually pull it down by the second week of October and it flushes those (deepwater) smallmouth out.”
Too much information … Fifth-place pro qualifier Joe Balog of Independence, Ohio, has been wearing the same pair of underwear for the last three days. It’s for luck, he says. “I wore them the first two days and they worked fine, but I’m running out of fish,” he said. Apparently, he’s not running out of luck, however. Sitting on the fifth-place bubble with dangerous Darrel Robertson of Jay, Okla., left to weigh in, Balog managed to squeak into the finals when Robertson’s 2-pound total catch weight couldn’t beat his own 3-pound, 4-ounce weight.
Quick Numbers
1,666,67: Amount, in dollars and cents, that each of co-angler Bo Standley‘s fish was worth during the championship. He caught three bass the entire week – all on day two – and earned $5,000 for finishing in fourth place.
45,500: Collective amount, in dollars, earned by the eleven pro and co-angler finishers who didn’t weigh in a single bass on Friday at the championship.
Sound Bites
“That’s a whole lot for one fish.”
– Jeffery Carman, who won $7,000 for second place in the Co-Angler Division.
“We’re being consistent, though.”
– Sixth-place co-angler Guy Lindstrom of Horseshoe Bend, Ark., describing the eight out of 10 co-angler finalists who didn’t catch a fish today.
Quick Links, Day 3:
Photos
Results
A champion in the Flesh
Eakins eeks out lead in $325,000 EverStart Championship
Press release