Demaury Delivers on Potomac

Determining preferred presentation key to EverStart Northern win

MARBURY, Md. – Learning to read the fish and determine what they want is one of the essential ingredients for tournament success. Doing so earned Josh Demaury his first EverStart Series victory in the Northern Division tournament on the Potomac River.

Demaury fished a handful of different presentations starting with a Texas-rigged Zoom Speed Craw, which he swam through the grass. This bait produced some of his biggest bites throughout the tournament.

Around docks and pilings, fishing a finesse worm yielded a few keepers. On day three, he caught his best fish by swimming jigs with Speed Craw trailers through the grass. Green pumpkin and Junebug red flake were his best colors.

“They wanted the reaction (presentations),” Demaury said. “Today, I figured out that they didn’t want it on the bottom; they wanted it moving.”

On day one, Demaury found himself tied for 32nd place with 8 pounds, 14 ounces. He made a big move up to third place on day two after catching 14-0. In the final round, he added 14-5 and surged across the finish line with 37-3.

Brown slips to second

Day-two leader Derek Brown of Charlottesville, Va., slipped one spot to second in the final round. Tallying weights of 9-15, 14-11 and 11-7 gave him a three-day total of 36-1.

“The first two days, it was a shaky head, but today was a completely different story,” Brown said of his bait selection. “I couldn’t get a bite off the shaky head. Today, I caught them on a swim jig.”

Brown said that after placing 21st on day one, a top-10 finish seemed out of reach. Fortunately, a big day-two comeback turned things around for him.

“I didn’t expect to be where I was at after day one; I was pretty far behind,” he said. “I’m blessed to be where I’m at and I’m happy with what I did.”

Shaky heads key for third-place Williams

In third place, David Williams moved up three spots from seventh with a three-day total of 34-0. The co-angler from Fredericksburg, Va. caught most of his fish on shaky heads with trick worms.

“I did catch two really good frog fish that really helped me,” he said.

Baird and Macrobbie take fourth, fifth

Lenny Baird of Stafford, Va. dropped two spots to fourth with 33-2. In fifth place Scott Macrobbie, of Linthicum, Md., ended with 31-2.

Best of the rest

Rounding out the top-10 co-angler leaders at the EverStart Series Potomac event:

6th: Thomas Bavaro III, of Joppa, Md., 30-3

7th: Andy Dick, of Wilmington, Del., 30-2

8th: Alex Antipenko, of Brooklyn, N.Y., 28-13

9th: Billy Dehart, of Burlingame, Calif., 26-15

10th: Marvin Reese, of Gwynn Oak, Md., 26-13