Day: August 25, 2019, The National Angler

EDWIN EVERS RUNS AWAY WITH FIRST EVER REDCREST CHAMPIONSHIP AT UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER

LA CROSSE, Wis. (Aug. 25, 2019) – Before the start of the REDCREST Presented by Venmo, there may have been a debate about who is currently the most feared angler on tour. But now there’s no doubt.
It’s been a good year for Edwin Evers: Stage Two Champion, Bass Pro Tour Points Champion, and now REDCREST Champion. He took home $300,000 for his win today and can add that to the $193,600 he won during the season; no matter how you look at it, it’s been an excellent year.
Today, it was Evers, and then everybody else. His weight total of 85-06 was 15-pounds more than the combined totals of the second and third place anglers.
Edwin Evers was the big story today, and rightfully so.

Evers Dominates
Evers started the Championship Round with a bang and was out in front for nearly every minute today. Greg Hackney made a push towards him during Period 2, but Evers was just getting started and turned it into a runaway victory.
His Period 3 flurry of 28 fish in 45 minutes sealed the deal with an exclamation point. In the third period alone, Evers caught 34 bass for a total of 48-08. That alone would have been enough to claim the win today.

Evers put on a bass-catching clinic in the championship round today, keeping his official and cameraman busy,for the top score to claim the REDCREST championship. (Photo by Garrick Dixon)

He was catching them so fast that his MLF official had a growing backlog of SCORETRACKER® entries. Once all of the anglers were notified of his nearly 40-pound jump when the system caught up, it came down to a battle for second, third and fourth places.

Evers did his damage in a backwater area with current flowing and bass feeding on shad. He had fished this area in previous tour-level events but was never able to secure a victory.

“What an amazing day. I was so excited to catch them where I caught them,” he said. “I’m so thankful I did it now because it was such a bigger stage.” Evers believes that if he had won previously, it would have exposed the area to more fishing pressure, and today’s win might not have happened.

“The main deal was that backwater being loaded with fish,” he said. He pitched a Berkley Pit Boss to shallow laydowns and a vibrating jig with a Berkley Powerbait The Deal as a trailer to current relating bass.

Hackney a Distant Second
Greg Hackney had a solid day of fishing with 22 bass for 40-07 and was the only angler to seriously challenge Evers today as he got within five pounds during Period 2.

“I caught some fish today but never found a group of them; they were all single fish. I knew the guy who wins would be the one who finds a school of them,” said Hackney.

Like the rest of the field, Hackney was impressed with what Evers was able to accomplish this year.

“He’s in the zone, and he’s made all the right decisions this year. All great fisherman get on a roll where it seems like the fish are looking for them and they can’t do anything wrong,” he added.

Vinson Caps Off a Solid Week
Greg Vinson was fourth after the Elimination Round and then led his group’s Knockout Round. Today, he ended up third during the Championship Round on Pool 7. All in all, it was a great week, and he was near the top of the standings all week long.

This fact isn’t lost on Vinson who was satisfied with his finish. “I’m pleased with how the week went. I have some good tournament history here, but I feel I made the right decision to fish the Black River to catch enough to make it to today,” he said.

He had limited experience on Pool 7 before today. “I’m proud that I put enough together to finish 3rd against this group of guys,” said Vinson.

His daily total was 20 bass for 29-06.

Daily Winners
Championship Round daily awards were:
* The Berkley Big Bass of the day was Greg Hackney’s 3-08 largemouth.
* Edwin Evers won the Berkley Catch Count award with 63 bass on the day.
* Evers’ 85-06 earned him the Phoenix Boats Daily Leader award.

Final Results
https://majorleaguefishing.com/event/redcrest-bass-pro-tour-championship-la-crosse-wi/results/

HARTMAN COMES FROM BEHIND TO WIN BASSMASTER ELITE SERIES EVENT AT CAYUGA LAKE

UNION SPRINGS, N.Y. —

On Sunday afternoon, for the second time in three tournaments, Jamie Hartman claimed a Bassmaster Elite Series victory.

Both were special. But he couldn’t deny this one meant just a little more.

Fishing in his home state of New York, Hartman caught five bass that weighed 22 pounds, 4 ounces Sunday and jumped from fourth place into the winner’s spot at the SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Cayuga Lake with a four-day total of 80-13.

After all the bass had been weighed, Hartman carried the blue trophy into a boisterous crowd of fans who were eager to hug and high-five their hometown favorite. It was a stark contrast to the celebration he was basically denied when he earned his first victory two months ago at Lake Guntersville and a severe thunderstorm rolled through just as he was handed the trophy.

“It just couldn’t be any better than this,” Hartman said. “For it to happen right here in my home state with all of my family here, it’s incredibly special.

“This is where my heart is. It’ll be hard to top this — ever.”

Hartman was one of the few anglers all week whose trajectory was consistently headed upward. He caught 16-14 Thursday, 19-9 Friday, 22-2 Saturday and 22-4 Sunday.

He spent all week fishing with two baits — a 4.75-inch Synth Worm from Riot Baits in green pumpkin neon on a drop-shot rig and a shad-colored crankbait he said is no longer in production.

He said his weights went up every day because he slowly learned the sweet spots of the area he was fishing on the North end of the lake.

“I had found a place on the South end during practice that was just loaded with them,” he said. “That’s where I started, and they just weren’t in there. I left there with only about 14 pounds and went back up to one little area of grass I found back up North.

“I decided to stick with that the rest of the week, and I learned which parts of it I needed to be fishing and which ones I didn’t have to bother with.”

Hartman said the green pumpkin neon pattern, which is a two-toned worm with green pumpkin on one side and chartreuse on the other, seemed perfect for the water color at Cayuga. He dyed the tail chartreuse to add even more color.

His crankbait bite was best when there was at least a little wind blowing. So, when he found slick calm conditions Sunday morning, he panicked and decided to run to the South end of the lake in an effort to catch one more big bass fishing boat docks.

After fishing 15 docks without a bite, he ran back North.

“As I was running to the South end, I could see that wind was finally putting a little bit of a ripple on the water,” Hartman said. “I started to just turn around and go right back to fish the crankbait. But I knew I would be able to tell pretty fast if the dock bite was happening — and it wasn’t.”

His decision to leave the docks proved to be the right one as he quickly landed a 4-pounder on the crankbait that put him over the top.

“Everything happens for a reason,” he said. “If I don’t make that run to the South — if I just stay where I was — maybe I don’t catch that 4-pounder. It worked out just right.”

Without that final big fish, Hartman would have come up short at the scales. His final total of 80-13 was just 10 ounces better than that of second-place angler Jeff Gustafson (80-3) and less than 2 pounds better than third-place pro Chris Zaldain (79-0).

Hartman’s second $100,000 first-place check of the season brought his career earnings with B.A.S.S. to just over $458,000. He only joined the Elite Series three years ago, and he missed several tournaments last season with back issues.

“The first win was awesome, coming back after everything that happened last year,” Hartman said. “I had missed everything that I had worked so hard for my whole life.

“This is all I’ve ever wanted to do — and to have this happen here today in New York, is literally my dream coming true.”

The Phoenix Boats Big Bass award of $1,500 went to Derek Hudnall for the 8 pound, 1 ounce giant he landed on Day 1 of the tournament.

Hartman earned $3,000 in Toyota Bonus Bucks for being the highest placing angler to drive a Toyota, while Brandon Lester earned an extra $2,000 for being the second highest-placing pro to drive a Toyota.