Reaching for history on the river
Ritter, Cox looking for repeats on the Mississippi; Roumbanis has lead
ONALASKA, Wis. – Friday on the Mississippi River, California’s Fred Roumbanis caught a kicker largemouth heavier than 5 pounds that propelled him into the Pro Division lead in the first half of the EverStart Series Northern Division final round. Saturday, all the stops are out as Wisconsin pros like Jeff Ritter and Chris Cox try to land lunkers of their own in their respective bids to overtake Roumbanis and make history.
Ritter won last year’s EverStart Northern event held on the Mississippi River, which was launched upriver from Welch, Minn., and is looking to repeat as this tournament’s champion. He’s sitting 1 pound, 2 ounces out of the lead in third place. He’s making no predictions for today, but seems to be on yet another strong pattern that has been giving him solid mixed bags of smallmouths and largemouths each day.
“As far as the win, I’m just hoping to best the weight I had yesterday,” he said. “All I can ask for is to fish as hard as I can and hope to get by.”
Cox – who is 2 pounds, 13 ounces out of first in fifth place – is on the verge of making history in another way. He won the first Northern event this season at the Detroit River. A win here would cement his place in the record books as the first pro to win back-to-back tournaments in the same EverStart division.
All eyes are on Roumbanis, though, and his leading weight of 15 pounds, 14 ounces. But even he will have more concerns than just Ritter and Cox. The top six pros are relatively bunched up in weight, all within about 3 pounds of each other. Lurking in second place is Wisconsin’s Jim Jones, who has been strong all week, and in fourth place is Ohio’s Bill Lowen, who has done well on this part of the river in the past. If that’s not enough, a dangerous X-factor will be Illinois’ Mike Feldermann, who makes a living out of scorching these Upper Mississippi River tournaments. Feldermann was disappointed by his sixth-place, 12-pound, 13-ounce limit Friday, but if anybody can make a 3-pound comeback on this river in a tight tournament, he’s the one who can do it.
The weather again is perfect: sunny, calm and warm. So look for another string of limits to cross the scale on the final day.
Friday’s weights carry over to Saturday, and each division’s winner will be determined by two-day combined weight. Saturday’s final weigh-in will be held at 4 p.m. Central time at the Wal-Mart store located at 3107 Marketplace in Onalaska. The onsite Fujifilm trout pond for kids opens at 2:30 p.m.
The winning pro earns an Evinrude- or Yamaha-powered Ranger 519VX equipped with Garmin electronics, a Minn Kota trolling motor and EverStart batteries plus $10,000 cash. If the winner is the original owner of a Ranger boat that is used during the tournament, the winner also receives a $10,000 bonus from Ranger for a top pro award of $60,000. If the winning pro is a Ranger Cup participant, 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, thus boosting potential winnings for the top pro to $65,500.
The winning co-angler receives $5,000 cash, and if the winner is a Ranger boat owner, Ranger will award a new Ranger 519VX for a total prize package worth $35,000.
Saturday’s conditions:
Sunrise: 5:59 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 58 degrees
Expected high temperature: 88 degrees
Water temperature: 77-81 degrees
Wind: SSW 9 mph
Maximum humidity: 46 percent
Day’s outlook: mostly sunny