SANDUSKY, Ohio – Clark Wolfe of Grove City, Ohio, landed two five-bass limits in three days of competition at the $185,000 EverStart Series Northern Division tournament on Lake Erie to claim the No. 1 qualifying spot in Saturday’s final round.
He caught five smallmouth bass weighing 17 pounds, 8 ounces on opening day then boated four more smallmouth bass weighing 14 pounds, 1 ounce Thursday to advance to the semifinal round in 13th place among the tournament’s top 30 pros with a two-day total of 31 pounds, 9 ounce. During Friday’s semifinal round Wolfe landed his second limit consisting of five smallmouth bass that tipped the scales to 20 pounds, 1 ounce to become the No. 1 seed.
Anglers started from zero weight for the semifinal round and will start from zero again for the final round, which features the top 10 pros and co-anglers fishing for top awards of $15,000 cash and a Mercury- or Yamaha-powered Ranger boat with GARMIN electronics in the Pro Division and $6,000 cash in the Co-Angler Division. The winning pro will also receive a $1,000 bonus from GARMIN if he was using one of the company’s fixed-mount sonars. Each division started out with 164 anglers Wednesday and was cut to the top 30 anglers following Thursday’s action.
Rounding out the top five pros were Vic Vatalaro of Kent, Ohio, with five bass weighing 19 pounds, 12 ounces; Jerry Skinner of Lynchburg, Va., with five bass weighing 19 pounds, 5 ounces; David Hayward of Sylvania, Ohio, with five bass weighing 19 pounds, 1 ounce; and David Reault of Livonia, Mich., with five bass weighing 18 pounds, 11 ounces.
Doug Caldwell of Kane, Pa., claimed the top qualifying spot in the Co-Angler Division with five bass weighing 20 pounds, 9 ounces. He made the semifinal round cut in 17th place Thursday with a two-day total of eight bass weighing 23 pounds, 8 ounces.
“I more or less came up here to practice for the FLW Tour Championship,” said Caldwell, whose catch marked the third day in a row that the top co-angler out fished the top pro. “I was dragging a green pumpkin tube with a ¾-ounce weight in 3- to 5-foot waves. It was very difficult to make contact with the bottom, but that is what you had to do to catch them.”
Dwight Ameling of Fremont, Ind., qualified in the No. 2 co-angler spot with five bass weighing 20 pounds, 5 ounces followed by James Liechty of Fort Wayne, Ind., with five bass weighing 18 pounds, 15 ounces.
Saturday’s action begins at 6 a.m. at Bickely’s Boat Dock located at 101 Shelby Street in Sandusky. The final weigh-in begins at 4 p.m. at the Wal-Mart Supercenter located at 5500 Milan Road in Sandusky.
The 4-year-old EverStart Series now includes three divisions-Eastern, Central and Northern-with four events each plus a year-end championship presented by Conseco. Tournament winners and the top 50 pros and top 50 co-anglers from each division will earn a spot in the championship, which will be held Nov. 7-10 on Pickwick Lake in Florence, Ala.
More than $2.5 million will be awarded during the 2001 EverStart Series season. The series also provides a pathway to the $4.45 million Wal-Mart FLW Tour-bass fishing’s most lucrative tournament series. Top EverStart competitors may also qualify for the Ranger M1 tournament in Mobile, Ala., Feb. 27-March 2, 2002, where they can win up to $1 million in the world’s richest freshwater tournament.