The winner of that first $50,000 prize (originally called the Las Vegas Open in 1981) was Greg Hines, a former member of the Arizona Bass Club, and a power fisherman who also found success on the B.A.S.S tour. He later qualified for the World Championship three times, the last
in 1998, proving the westerners were not going away. The end of the decade saw another angler to make a successful leap from West to East. Hawaii-born, raised in Southern California and earning his bachelor’s degree at Oregon State, Jay Yelas left his undergraduate work
in a hail of heavy casting. “U.S. Bass was big in the 1980s while I was still in college. I fished the World Team Championship at Mead and fished West Coast Bass in NorCal in 1987. My first pro event was the U.S. Open in 1987,” he recalled. “I was leading that the first day and finished 6th.” But Yelas also tackled other circuits such as Red Man, Sun Country in Arizona and New Mexico and WON Bass, which de- buted with a big field at Clear Lake in September of 1988. Just a year later, he earned the WON Bass Angler of the Year ti- tle by one point over Randy Best in 1989. “By then I was already formulating plans to move back east and fish the Bassmaster Tour,” said Yelas and in August of 1990 he moved to East Texas to be closer to the action. And what an impact he made. From 1991 to 2006, he qualified for every Bassmasters Classic, and won the World title in 2005. As a footnote to the Yelas Angler of the Year title, it should be mentioned that the aforementioned Best was an outstanding pro who had risen from the ranks of non- boaters and went on to win at the Delta, Lake Mead and Lake Havasu. But failure to
10 SILVER EAGLES _ July 2011