It was Jason Quinn's tournament to win or lose.
That seemed to be the consensus among both observers and competitors entering the final round of the CITGO Bassmaster Tour event on North Carolina's Lake Norman on an early March week that saw everything from snow to sun. After all, this is a lake where Quinn guides 60 to 70 days a year and had led the last two rounds.
Edwin Evers wasn't buying into that theory.
Although he hadn't popped one of the big catches in the first round and had yet to stumble into a quality largemouth, the Oklahoma pro had been nothing short of Steady Eddie with limits of 13 pounds, 1 ounce, 10-3 and 12-15. His third-round jump from 10th to third bode well for him, according to his way of thinking.
It took a dramatic last-cast bass weighing 3 pounds, 6 ounces and an Earnhardtlike dash back to the check-in boat to avoid being late, but Evers' final limit, weighing 10-3 gave him a total of 46-6. And that was enough to derail Quinn by a mere 13 ounces and legendary pro Rick Clunn by 14 ounces.
"It feels good to win another one," Evers says. "I only had two 3-pounders all week. That blows my mind big-time. Going into that tournament if you had told me you could win without 3-pounders every day, I would have said 'no way.'
"I struggled in practice. I didn't feel like I had a very good practice because I wasn't catching quality fish. I guess I didn't realize what kind of fishery Norman is. It's a numbers fishery instead of a big fish lake. You come from a place like Guntersville or Clarks Hill, where there are some really big ones, and you have the mind-set to find better quality fish. But I never found them here."
As it turned out, he didn't need to.
It has been that kind of year for Evers. Through his success in the CITGO Bassmaster Open, he had already qualified for his fifth CITGO Bassmaster Classic appearance before the Tour ever started. And his Tour heroics included leading the Lake Guntersville event the first three days before settling for third.
On Lake Norman, Evers' consistency improved his standing each round as he continually refined his pattern.
"Looking back at it, I did have it narrowed down at the end," Evers notes. "One of the main keys was each day I'd realize about an hour or two into fishing that the water I had fished the day before wasn't producing. I realized that I couldn't keep doing that, and started fishing new water.
"The last day, I think it was about 11:30 when I caught my third keeper and then the very next dock I caught my fourth keeper. Then the very next dock I caught my fifth keeper. And that was in a pocket that I hadn't fished all week. After that, I started to run new water."
Although two cold fronts slammed through Lake Norman, Evers perfected his pattern well enough to be able to apply it to new water each day. And that was what led to his victory.
"How much water I covered was a big key," he says. "What was a help to me was that my depthfinder (Lowrance) shows my entire trail. It shows everywhere I've been. By the fourth day, it was hard to find new water in the areas that would hold fish — my Lowrance looked like a city map with all the trails it mapped in the creek I was fishing."
Evers' primary game plan involved targeting the first few docks in side pockets in Reed Creek, a major midlake arm, and its numerous tributaries.
"Every now and then I'd fish all the way to the back of a pocket," he explains. "At the end of the third day, I caught my big bass in the back of a pocket. The water temperature got up to 54 degrees, and that told me that the next day I needed to look at the backs of some pockets some more.
"And that's where I caught the other big one (3 pounds, 5 ounces) — in the back of a pocket right at the very end of the day. That water was warming up, and I think the fish in the backs of those pockets were getting more active."
To exploit the docks, Evers used a pair of lures: a Rapala Shad Rap crankbait and a green-pumpkin 5/8-ounce jig (hand-tied by friend and pro Brian Snowden). Both were fished on a medium-heavy 7-foot Bass Pro Shops Qualifier rod and Qualifier reel with 12-pound-test Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon line.
"Cranking in the mornings and then flipping docks was basically all I was doing," Evers says. "There was one day in there where I just fished everything down the bank.
"The second day, I caught them off docks, caught them off stumps, caught them off laydowns and clay points. But they were all Kentuckys that day. We still had a little bit of wind and whatnot, and I was still able to catch them cranking."
In the end, it took a different skill — high speed boat driving — to secure the $100,000 win. After his last-cast catch, Evers had a difficult time culling the smallest bass in his livewell and then faced a race against time to get back to the weigh-in site.
"I ended up cutting it close," he admits. "I told everybody I had 90 seconds to spare because it sounded good, but it was really less than that."
Winning details
Edwin Evers
North Carolina Tour Champion
Lake Norman
LURES: Rapala Shad Rap crankbait and a green-pumpkin 5/8-ounce jig with a green-pumpkin crawfish trailer.
TACKLE: 12-pound-test Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon line, medium-heavy 7-foot Bass Pro Shops Qualifier rod and BPS Qualifier reel.
TECHNIQUE: Targeted docks in side pockets in a major midlake creek. The most productive docks were positioned on flat clay points. Cranked dock pilings early and pitched/skipped a jig under platform near the back end later in the morning.
Purolator Big Bass
Dave Wolak, 5-12
"I saw the big bass roll in this school of stripers that started schooling. I threw the chrome Lucky Craft Pointer 100 close to where I had seen the fish roll, and I only got two twitches in before he just exploded all over the bait. He completely ate it. I was using 20-pound Power Pro braid and fished on a Team Daiwa S reel and a homemade 7-foot baitcast rod."
Tournament summary
Day 1: The tournament opened with 20 degree temperatures, sleet and snow. It was the worst weather of the entire 2005 Tour. But this is the day when Lake Norman surprises everyone with KOTARO KIRIYAMA'S 19-7 and Skeet Reese's 18-2.
Day 2: The sun comes out (along with bluebird skies) as the post-frontal conditions make the fishing considerably tougher than the day before. It is a day when JASON QUINN utilizes the extensive knowledge gained from guiding 60 to 80 days a year on Lake Norman to catch 15-12 and jump into the lead. And he gets it done despite losing two hours of fishing time because of a mechanical problem.
Day 3: The cold front's grip on Lake Norman's resident bass tightens instead of lessening as expected. Quinn scrambles to catch enough (9-12) to hang on to a 1-pound, 5-ounce lead. But on this day, Edwin Evers jumps into the fray with the round's largest catch (12-15) to skip from 10th to third place. There is a tie for the sixth (and last) spot for the finals between ISH MONROE and Greg Gutierrez with 31-10; Monroe takes the tiebreaker, having caught one more fish than Gutierrez.
Day 4: On the final day, the $100,000 top prize comes down to the first and last bass hooked by a pair of anglers. Quinn loses a big fish on one of his first casts of the morning and never recovers. EVERS catches the round's largest bass (3-6) on his last cast and then races in to avoid being penalized for returning late. The result is a 13-ounce victory for Evers.
Runners-up
2. JASON QUINN
Jason Quinn put himself in a position to claim his first BASS victory with three solid limits that gave him the lead entering the final round. But in the end, it was his decision to go big bass hunting instead of first finishing out his limit that caused him to come up 13 ounces short.
His success revolved around concentrating on supershallow docks on red clay banks in Davidson Creek, where he alternated a pair of Tennessee-shad-patterned crankbaits (Luhr Jensen Speed Trap and Brian's Little B), as well as a brown 3/8-ounce jig (with a green-pumpkin chunk trailer). The divers were fished on a medium action 7-foot All-Star rod and Pflueger reel with 10-pound-test Shakespeare Supreme line, while the jig was on a 7 1/2-foot heavy action rod and 20-pound monofilament. He scored by cranking early and skipping the jig later in the day.
"People just couldn't get bit on the deeper docks and they didn't think the shallower docks had enough water on them to hold fish," Quinn explains. "A good dock had about 3 1/2 feet of water on the front of it, and most of my fish came in 1 1/2 feet of water. Every fish I caught was on the very back of the dock at the walkway. I was skipping the jig to them."
3. RICK CLUNN
The backsides of shallow docks was where Rick Clunn concentrated his efforts in about 3 feet of water. He seined those docks with two colors (copper and green shad) of a Lucky Craft RC 1.5 and 3.5 crankbait, a new shallow diver, that were tied to 14- and 17-pound-test line.
"All of my fish came from the walkway," Clunn said. "That was my whole key and the only pattern I felt other anglers were overlooking. The other key thing I found out was that these fish were in wolf packs. The first day, I caught four fish in a row off one piling, and they were all 2 1/2-pounders."