FLORENCE, Ala. – Buoyed by a five bass, 11-pound, 10-ounce catch Thursday during one of the stingiest opening rounds on record, Darrel Robertson of Jay, Okla., leads 10 semifinalists back onto Pickwick Lake Friday with a two-day total of 10 bass weighing 24 pounds, 4 ounces.
Robertson caught five bass weighing 12 pounds, 10 ounces on opening day Wednesday to finish in second place. He then rose to the occasion and captured the lead Thursday with the only five-bass limit caught by the 324 championship qualifiers from the EverStart Series Northern, Eastern and Central divisions.
While many anglers unsuccessfully targeted Pickwick Lake’s renowned smallmouths, Robertson ignored them in favor of a productive largemouth pattern. “I’m kind of illiterate when it comes to those brown bass,” said Robertson, who is using Rat-L-Traps, crankbaits, flukes and spinnerbaits. “We don’t have them back home, so I never have figured them out.”
Robertson may downplay his fishing acumen, but when a championship is on the line he usually comes up big. During a two-month span in the fall of 1999, he won the Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship and the Ranger M1 Millennium-the two most lucrative tournaments in bass fishing. Those two events netted him $860,000.
Pro Joe Balog of Independence, Ohio, caught nine bass weighing 21 pounds, 11 ounces over two days to secure the No. 2 spot in the semifinal round followed by Mark Mauldin of Cleveland, Tenn., with seven bass weighing 18 pounds, 4 ounces; Terry Tucker of Gadsden, Ala., with six bass weighing 17 pounds, 10 ounces; and Dave Lefebre of Erie, Pa., with eight bass weighing 15 pounds, 8 ounces.
The remaining field of 10 pros will be cut to the top five following Friday’s 5 p.m. weigh-in at the Florence Wal-Mart Supercenter on Hough Road. Saturday’s final weigh-in, where the winning pro will be awarded $60,000 in cash and prizes, will also be held at Wal-Mart starting at 3:30 p.m. Anglers start the semifinal and final rounds from zero.
In the Co-angler Division, Renee Flesh of Edwardsburg, Mich., claimed the top spot heading into the final day of co-angler competition with a two-day total of four bass weighing 10 pounds, 9 ounces. She caught one bass weighing 5 pounds, 6 ounces on opening day then turned in three more bass weighing 5 pounds, 3 ounces on day two. Flesh is the only woman to make the cut.
Qualifying in second and third place were co-anglers Garry Collins of Russell Springs, Ky., with four bass weighing 10 pounds, 3 ounces and Jeffery Carman of Liberty, Ky., with three bass weighing 9 pounds, 5 ounces.
Co-angler competition ends Friday with the winner taking home $40,000 in cash and prizes.
Big bass and $625 in the Pro Division went to Bill McDonald of Indianapolis, Ind., for a 5-pound, 3-ounce bass. Big bass and $250 in the Co-angler Division went to Bo Standley of Silsvee, Texas, for a 5-pound bass.
A total of 201 bass were caught Thursday including one five-bass limit.
Competition resumes at 8 a.m. Friday at McFarland Park. Saturday’s takeoff is scheduled for 6:30 a.m. at the park.
The 4-year-old EverStart Series features four events per division plus the year-end $325,000 championship presented by Conseco. Tournament winners and the top 50 pros and top 50 co-anglers from each division qualified for the championship. Top EverStart competitors may also qualify for the Ranger M1 tournament in Mobile, Ala., Feb. 27-March 2, 2002, where they could win up to $1 million in the world’s richest freshwater tournament.