Record weights and final-round showdowns make 2000 EverStart Series a season to remember
While the 2000 EverStart Series season may have lacked some of the glitz and glamour enjoyed by its photogenic big brother, the 2000 Wal-Mart FLW Tour, it certainly didn’t suffer from any scarcity of thrills. With its yearlong display of championship-caliber fishing, down-to-the-wire finishes and some really big bass, the 2000 tournament season showed once again why the EverStart Series is the ultimate portal to big-time competitive bass fishing.
Tour Stop #1: Okeechobee’s big bass
The season started with a record-setting Eastern Division event on Lake Okeechobee, Fla., in January. Marked by pro Rick Gunter’s enormous second-day catch – an EverStart one-day record of 30 pounds, 5 ounces, including one behemoth largemouth that sunk the scale at 8-7 – the tourney showcased just how big Okeechobee’s tournament bass can be. In the end it would be a 52-year-old engineer named Robert Beatty of Orlando, Fla., who would emerge victorious in the Pro Division. He battled through a fog-shortened day four to bag five fish at 12 pounds, 4 ounces and took first place at the first EverStart tourney of the year.
Taking the co-angler trophy home was Kindle Nelms of Lake City, Fla. Despite chalking up a zero on the first day, Nelms made his first top-10 appearance in three years on the tour and won with a weight of 3 pounds, 14 ounces.
Tour Stop #2: Fish-off in Alabama
The next stop, at Lake Martin, Ala., saw the triumph of 25-year bass tournament veteran and local competitor Trip Weldon, who hails from nearby Wetumpka. Weldon got hot despite the cool February temperatures and pulled off the Pro Division win with a final-round 13-pound, 14-ounce catch. On the co-angler side, it was Jack Sharp of Alexander City, Ala., who rallied for first place with a 7-pound, 7-ounce day-four catch.
The Lake Martin tourney was also the scene of the year’s only fish-off, a rare situation where two anglers who come in tied must fish head-to-head to decide who advances. Facing off on day two were Jeff Taylor of Vernon, Ala., and Fred Hill of Gibsonville, N.C., in a one-hour fishing frenzy underneath the waning light of dusk. Both had come in tied for 30th in the Co-Angler Division and were sent back out on the water following the weigh-in for a sudden-death showdown to decide who would go to the second round.
Sixty minutes later, Taylor would describe his tie-breaking bass, the only one landed by either angler, as nothing short of divine. “I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “The good Lord reached down with his hand and put a bass on the end of my line.” Taylor even made the final round and eventually finished in fifth place. Perhaps most gracious of all was Hill, who said, “I’m just glad you got one and it was decided that way.”
Tour Stop #3: For the record on Santee Cooper
The third event saw not just one, but two, EverStart weight records broken on Lake Santee Cooper, S.C., in March. Pro William Smith, of nearby Moncks Corner, S.C., smashed the final-round weight record with a five-fish, 21-pound, 3-ounce stringer on day four. A maintenance technician who had to borrow a boat to fish the tourney, Smith took the win in his first-ever EverStart event. “I somehow managed to scrounge up $500 and put my name in a hat, and look what happens,” he said. “It’s really unbelievable.”
A day earlier, Lex Costas, also a South Carolina native and Santee Cooper veteran, hooked a record of his own. He caught the largest semifinal-round weight ever with a 28-pound, 3-ounce performance. The weight nearly caught Gunter’s single-day record of 30-5 set earlier in the year on Lake Okeechobee.
The co-anglers were reeling in the big ones, too. Winner Gene Butts Sr. of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., took first place with an impressive weight of 15 pounds, 6 ounces.
Tour Stop #4: Weathering Sam Rayburn
Also in March, the Central Division kicked off its year under ominous skies and nasty winds at Sam Rayburn Reservoir, Texas. While 30-mph gusts buffeted the east Texas impoundment, anglers still managed to curl up in coves and get to fishing in the final round. Emerging victorious from the maelstrom was pro Randy Millender of Teague, Texas, who brought in four bass weighing a lucky 13 pounds, 13 ounces in the final round. On the co-angler side, Wesley Burnett, a Hot Springs, Ark., native fishing in only his second EverStart tourney, took first with a 10-pound, 4-ounce stringer.
Tour Stop #5: Repeat on Beaver Lake
On April 1, pro Curt Lytle of Suffolk, Va., came to the rolling hills of northwest Arkansas and Beaver Lake like a man on a mission. He topped the field with a final-round 12-pound, 4-ounce catch. “This place has been great to me,” he said. “Mentally, for whatever reason, I fish well here.” No April fool’s joke, Lytle also won the EverStart Invitational Challenge on Beaver Lake last year. This year’s win, his second on the tour, secured Lytle’s place as a favorite anytime he fishes a tournament on Beaver Lake.
For the co-anglers, it was Jack Morse of Oglesby, Texas, on the winning end of things with a weight of 10-15.
Tour Stop #6: Another Beaver makes it on tour
In another cold-weather contest, April’s Eastern Division tourney was set amongst the stark cliffs of Kentucky’s Lake Cumberland. There, a perennial top-10 pro qualifier but as yet winless EverStart veteran, Rodger Beaver of Leesburg, Ga., managed to squeak into the finals in 10th place and win with a strong day four. Lake Cumberland was coughing up smallmouth in record numbers, and Beaver was able to slow-roll his spinnerbait to a 15-pound, 11-ounce catch and first place. Tony Hill of Chatsworth, Ga., took first in the Co-Angler Division with an 8-pound, 14-ounce weight in the final round.
Also making news on Lake Cumberland was an impressive 4-pound, 13-ounce spotted bass caught on day two by pro Mark Mauldin of Knoxville, Tenn. Said EverStart Tournament Director Jerry Stakely, “It’s the biggest (spotted bass) I’ve ever seen in a tournament.”
Tour Stop #7: A tight finish in Kentucky
Perhaps it was fitting that the most thrilling tournament finish on the EverStart Series this year happened in Gilbertsville, Ky. – home base for Operation Bass headquarters. In May, renowned fisheries Kentucky and Barkley lakes provided the setting for the nail-biting Central Division final-round showdown between pros Keith Monson of Burgin, Ky., and Mike Hawkes of Sabinal, Texas.
Monson came across the stage first. He weighed in his best stringer of the tournament, a whopping 19 pounds, 1 ounce, which put him a decisive 5 pounds ahead of all the other finalists except one – Hawkes. The last to weigh his fish, Hawkes embodied his name as he waited anxiously offstage, looking ready to attack the competition. As he brought his sack of fish to the scale, the hushed crowd could tell it held a lot of bass – big bass. A steady stream of 4-pounders emerged as he placed them, one by one, on the scale and accumulated weight – 4, 8, 12, 15 1/2 pounds. Monson stirred visibly from the leader’s position on the back of the stage as Hawkes set his last fish – a good-size largemouth – on the scale. A breeze buffeted the scale. Stakely waited for it settle.
“19 pounds, 0 ounces!” the tournament director announced.
The crowd went wild. Monson, a mild-mannered 41-year-old convenience store owner, raised his arms victoriously. The good-natured Hawkes congratulated the winner and accepted accolades from the crowd for putting on a good show.
The 1-ounce win – as close as they come in tournament fishing – was Monson’s first on the EverStart Series, and what a win it was. “I’m a nervous wreck,” he said afterward. “My winning weight was 19-1, but what I really need is to call 911. I can barely breathe.”
Also a little weak in the knees was Chuck Rounds of Benton, Ky., who captured his first EverStart victory in the Co-Angler Division with 9-pound, 5-ounce catch. Before his win in Gilbertsville, Rounds had never cracked the top 30 in three years on tour.
Tour Stop #8: Oklahomania!
The final regular-season event, a Central Division affair on Fort Gibson Lake, Okla., in June, drew major attention from the fishing-crazed fans in nearby Wagoner. They came in droves to watch as their Sooner State favorites put on a virtual tournament-fishing clinic. Of the top 10 pros and co-anglers to fish the final round, five in each division were Oklahoma natives. What’s more, 31 of the 60 semifinalists in both divisions combined were Oklahomans.
It was Sam Newby of Pocola, Okla., who made an impressive run in the final two rounds to take home the pro trophy. Newby grabbed the lead on Friday with a 14-pound, 13-ounce performance. Then he upped the ante on Saturday when it counted and came in with a 17-2 catch, two pounds in front of Sam Criswell of Del Rio, Texas. On the co-angler side, Tom Haynes of Tulsa, Okla., completed the Oklahomans’ run as he captured first place with a 14-pound stringer on day four.
The final analysis: Onward and upward
When all was fished and weighed, the 2000 EverStart Series provided bass fans and anglers alike more than its share of top-notch competition and drama. Next year when the Operation Bass crew takes its game north of the Mason-Dixon line for the additional, new Northern Division circuit, the 2001 EverStart Series promises to become that much more intriguing as the competitors must find ways to fish the waters of the North, which have been relatively untested by pro bass competition.
But first, there’s some unfinished business. Right now 300 of the nation’s top anglers – the best of the 2000 EverStart Series season – are preparing for the 2000 EverStart Series Invitational Challenge. To be held Nov. 8-11 at Florida’s smaller-venue Winter Haven Chain of Lakes near Cypress Gardens, the Challenge should prove to be just that – a challenge. But with two titles on the line – the season standings title and the Invitational Challenge title – look for these anglers to cap the year with a standout show.