EVERSTART SERIES TO VISIT LAKE HAVASU FOR $214,525 EVENT

LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. (March 3, 2004) – The $3.88 million EverStart Series will stage a four-day, $214,525 Western Division event on Lake Havasu March 17-20, marking the first time the tournament trail has visited the fabled Arizona fishery. The event will feature as many as 150 pro bass anglers casting for a top award worth as much as $60,400 and as many as 150 co-anglers competing for a cash-and-prize package worth as much as $34,500.

Phoenix pro John Murray calls the tournament’s mid-March time slot the best time of the year to fish Lake Havasu. Anglers will likely be targeting the lake’s prolific largemouth-bass population, but according to Murray, the number of Havasu bronzebacks is on the rise and could flesh out several anglers’ limits. Largemouths will probably be relating heavily to tules, buried in the heaviest cover they can find, and tubes, jigs and the Kinami Flash should be productive lures. Competitors will likely find the smallmouths, however, on rocky or sandy main-lake points, with anglers tempting these harder-to-find bass with drop-shot finesse worms in oxblood or watermelon patterns.

Anglers will take off each morning at 7 from Windsor Park in Lake Havasu City. Wednesday and Thursday’s weigh-ins will also be held there beginning at 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday’s weigh-ins will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at 1795 Kiowa Blvd. in Lake Havasu City beginning at 4 p.m. The community is encouraged to attend daily takeoffs and weigh-ins.

The full field will compete for two days to determine the top 20 pros and 20 co-anglers who will advance to Friday’s semifinal round based on their two-day accumulated weight. Weights are cleared for the semifinal round, and anglers compete for one day to determine who will advance to Saturday’s final round. Only the top 10 pros and 10 co-anglers compete Saturday, and the winner is determined by the heaviest two-day weight.

The winning pro is guaranteed $8,500 cash plus an Evinrude- or Yamaha-powered Ranger 519 VS equipped with Garmin electronics, a Minn Kota trolling motor and EverStart Batteries, based on a 150-boat field. If the winner is the original owner of a Ranger boat, he will receive a $10,000 bonus from Ranger for a top pro award worth $60,400. If he is a qualifying participant in the Ranger Cup incentive program, Ranger will award another $3,000 cash (or $1,500 to the highest-finishing Ranger Cup participant if not the winner), and Yamaha will match 50 percent of Ranger Cup winnings if the angler’s boat is powered by a Yamaha outboard. Garmin will award the winning pro $1,000 if he uses only Garmin electronics and at least one unit is a qualifying unit.

The winning co-angler is guaranteed $4,500 cash based on a 150-boat field, and if he is a Ranger boat owner, Ranger will award him a new Ranger 519 VS for a total prize package worth $34,500. Co-anglers who make the final round of each regular-season EverStart Series event and wear an EverStart/Evinrude shirt and cap on stage are awarded points toward the EverStart Batteries and Evinrude Outboard Engines Co-angler Award. The co-angler receiving the most points by the end of the season receives a 2004 Evinrude 225HO Direct Injection outboard engine rigged on a Ranger boat equipped with a Minn Kota trolling motor and EverStart batteries.

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 $6.8 million Wal-Mart FLW Tour, the world’s most lucrative bass-tournament series, the $3.88 million EverStart Series features four divisions – Eastern, Central, Northern and Western – with four regular-season events each. The season culminates with the $335,975 EverStart Series Championship presented by Energizer, which will be held Nov. 3-6 on Lake Cumberland near Somerset, Ky. The event will be broadcast to 65 million subscribers of the Outdoor Life Network on the “FLW Outdoors” television series. Western Division anglers who finish in the top 30 in the final points standings are eligible to compete in the championship.

The third regular-season Western Division event will be held on Clear Lake in Clearlake, Calif., April 14-17, and regular-season competition concludes May 5-8 with a tournament presented by Garmin on the California Delta near Oakley, Calif.

Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors is the world’s leading marketer of competitive fishing. FLW Outdoors-sanctioned tournament trails are the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, EverStart Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour and Wal-Mart RCL Walleye League. 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 six tournament trails.  Wal-Mart has been the title sponsor of FLW Outdoors since 1997.