SOMERSET, Ky. (Oct. 19, 2004) – Bass anglers from around the nation will head to Kentucky’s Lake Cumberland Nov. 3-6 for the $335,975 EverStart Series Championship presented by Energizer. The prestigious postseason event, which features 300 of the country’s best anglers, concludes the tournament trail’s most successful year to date in its seven-year history.
Pro Division competitors will fish for a Ranger boat powered by Evinrude or Yamaha that is equipped with Garmin electronics, a Minn Kota trolling motor and EverStart batteries, plus a guaranteed cash award of $25,000. If the winner is a qualifying Ranger boat owner, he will receive an extra $10,000 in bonus cash from Ranger. The top co-angler will claim a fully rigged Ranger boat plus $10,000 cash.
Yamaha pro Terry Bolton of Paducah, who enters the championship as the third-ranked angler in the Central Division, says anglers will need a mixed bag of tricks in order to lead the way at the central Kentucky fishery. “This isn’t going to be a tournament that will be won exclusively with a flipping stick or with spinning gear, or strictly with largemouths, smallmouths or spots,” Bolton said. “Anglers are going to have to mix it up and fish for all three. The guy that wins might be flipping with 20-pound line part of the day and throwing a spinning rig with 8-pound line the rest of the time.”
While Cumberland offers an array of cover as well as all three bass species, Bolton expects the bite to be challenging in early November, with an average daily catch of 6 to 7 pounds likely to be good enough to advance to the final round. Bolton predicts that a 22- to 26-pound two-day weight will claim the win on the final day.
The top 40 pros and co-anglers from the Eastern, Central and Northern divisions of the EverStart Series and the top 30 from the Western Division (based on year-end points standings) are eligible to compete in the championship. Each EverStart Series division features four regular-season events, and every angler who receives weight credit in a tournament earns points, with 200 points awarded to the winner, 199 for second, 198 for third, and so on. These points determine angler standings.
Notable championship qualifiers include points leaders Charlie Hartley of Grove City, Ohio (Northern Division), Mike Folkestad of Yorba Linda, Calif. (Western Division), Pedigree pro Greg Pugh of Cullman, Ala. (Eastern Division), and former Wal-Mart FLW Tour Angler of the Year Dan Morehead of Paducah (Central Division). Other anglers to watch include Western standouts Art Berry of Hemet, Calif., and Brent Ehrler of Redlands, Calif.; perennial contenders Steve Kennedy of Auburn, Ala., who fishes for Team Pedigree, and Dave Lefebre of Erie, Pa., a Kellogg’s pro-staff member; and Fujifilm pro Wesley Strader of Spring City, Tenn., who qualified for the championship in two divisions. He ranked seventh in Eastern Division points standings and eighth in the Northern Division.
The full field of 150 pros and 150 co-anglers will compete during the two-day opening round to determine the top 10 pros and 10 co-anglers who will advance to the semifinal round based on their two-day accumulated weight. The 10 semifinalists will start at zero on day three, and co-angler competition concludes. The 10 pros will advance to the final round with the winner determined by the heaviest two-day catch weight.
Anglers will take off from General Burnside State Park, located at 8801 S. Highway 27 in Burnside, at 7 a.m. each day except for Friday, when takeoff is at 8 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday’s weigh-ins, Nov. 3 and 4, will also take place at General Burnside beginning at 3 p.m., and Friday and Saturday’s weigh-ins, Nov. 5 and 6, will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at 177 Washington Drive in Somerset beginning at 5 p.m. and 3 p.m., respectively.
Coverage of the EverStart Series Championship will be broadcast to 65 million subscribers of the Outdoor Life Network on “FLW Outdoors.” The show will air Sunday, Nov. 21 at 1 p.m. EST and again Wednesday, Nov. 24 at 5:30 p.m. EST.
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.
FLW Outdoors is the industry’s premier provider of sport-fishing tournaments, including the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, the world’s most lucrative bass-fishing circuit; the EverStart Series, known as the gateway to the FLW Tour; the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League for weekend anglers; the Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail; the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour, the world’s most lucrative walleye-fishing circuit; the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye League for weekend anglers; the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour, the world’s most lucrative kingfish series; and the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series. For more information, visit FLWOutdoors.com.
EverStart Batteries, the best-selling batteries in the world, are marketed exclusively by Wal-Mart stores.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its eight tournament trails. Wal-Mart has been the title sponsor of FLW Outdoors since 1997.
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