Edwin Evers Wins Grand Lake Bassmaster Classic

Edwin Evers said he spent a total of 15 minutes in the Elk River during practice leading up to the Bassmaster Classic. The water was clearer there than anywhere else on the Grand Lake system, something others discovered as well. In those 15 minutes, he caught a 7-pounder and shook off two other good fish. He never went back - until he had to. In what may go down as one of the shrewdest calls in Classic history, Evers opted to wait until Sunday when he faced a deficit of more than 6 pounds to check the area of the Elk where he'd been in practice. It was hardly new water to him. He's fished the Elk for years, but if he had his druthers - and conditions were right - he would've spent this year's Classic on the lower end of the lake where the bigger population of big fish lives. The floods from December had deposited plenty of logs and other wood along a wide flat near where the rivers narrows down as it flows out of Missouri. Those same floods had laid waste to the clear water on the lower end of Grand and forced anglers to rethink their strategies. For Evers, that meant the Elk and Neosho rivers would figured prominently his tournament strategy.

After catching 13-12 on day 1 (with just four fish) in the mid-lake section, Evers got back into contention with a 17-08 bag out of the Neosho on day 2. That put him in 3rd place, a fair amount (6-05) behind close friend and Elite Series traveling partner Jason Christie, who led after days 1 and 2. "It's a 3-day tournament," he said. "I spent my time in three different places and without those first 2 days, today doesn't matter." Over the span of 2 hours Sunday morning, Evers put on a river fishing clinic, capitalizing on the windy conditions that helped him target the fish he'd found in practice to the tune of 29-03. No Classic winner had ever caught a heavier stringer on the final day of the event. With Christie struggling to generate bites with the spinnerbait that had carried him to the lead, the door was open for Evers and he blew it down, winning by more than 10 pounds with a 3-day total of 60-07. "Never in 100 years would I have dreamed that I could've caught Jason," he said. "It was a great, great day." The Classic was Evers' 200th Bassmaster tournament and the victory wipes away the label that had followed him around for a while - best angler without a Classic or AOY title. "It feels so much better," Evers said. "It wasn't going to kill me. It was bothering me for a while and then last year it didn't seem like a big deal. If I quit tomorrow, I'd have nothing to be ashamed of over my career. I've had a good career, but this sure makes it a lot better." After posting back-to-back Elite Series wins in 2015 - he was the first do that - and then adding a Classic trophy to his mantle, Evers wants to keep the momentum rolling. The 2016 Elite Series season kicks off next week at the St. Johns River, where Evers won an Elite event in 2011. "I don't want to be satisfied with it," he said. "I'm not done yet."

Evers finished 25th at the 2013 at Grand, largely due to his unwillingness to adjust. "I got stubborn and tried to catch them where I wanted them to be in the clear water," he said. He vowed to not let that happen again this year. He didn't fish Grand in December while the water was on the rise as a result of the heavy rains. He'd spent a day there with a friend last November, but he focused on the lower end and caught small fish. The bulk of his prep work was done on the water last winter when conditions were much different. "I spent so much time at Grand last winter," he said. "I didn't care if it was 20 degrees and snowing. I was trying to do all I could to get ready for this event. We had crystal clear water and then boom; we get rain - record rain - and the lake's 13 feet high. The whole end of the lake that I'm most familiar with - the bottom end was mud." Prior to the start of practice last week, he drove around the perimeter of the lake in an effort to see if any areas had cleared up enough. They hadn't. "Last winter, I never made a cast above Horse Creek. Not one time, so this tournament was really brand new to me," he said. "I know the lower end really well and that's where I wanted it to go down, but it was just muddy and it wasn't anything like I needed it to be. "It's weird how these things work out. Here I am, Classic champion on a whole completely different end of the lake that you could've told me it would be won and I'd have said, 'No. There's no way.' Now I'm sitting here, next to this trophy." In practice, he explored the mid-lake section and the river arms. "I established in practice that I could catch them on a crankbait on shallow banks in the backs of pockets and along the last channel swing," he said. All of the crankbait fish would hit the bait when he paused it. He offered up a jig and spinnerbait and a creature bait when fishing in the rivers around wood.

Competition:

He relied on the crankbait pattern on day 1, but he sensed it wasn't going to hold up all 3 days, especially with high skies and a warming trend on the way. "That pattern was dying because of the warming water," he said. "The water temperature was 44. It was going away. With bass, you want to find where they're going." He was initially disappointed with having just four fish for 13-12 to start off the event, but after realizing many of his competitors had an equally hard time, he changed his tune. "I thought it was a failure until I saw the weights," he said. "I survived it. I'd thought I let the Classic slip away. It was a tough day." He shifted to "damage control" mode on day 2, but it went better than expected. He simplified his approach, flipped with a Zoom Z-Hog Jr., his "all-time confidence bait," and came out with 17-08, the best bag of the day, to rise from 13th to 3rd. "I just looked at new stuff," he said. "I had no bites at 10:30 a.m. and went up the Neosho. I was thinking, 'That's not where you go to win,' but I caught a nice stringer. I never would've gone up that river if it had been a normal Grand year because that's about the max you can get from up there - 17 pounds. It just all worked out good." That nice stringer kept him within shouting distance of Christie, who for two straight days small-eyed his fish and built lead of 5-11 that few thought was surmountable. He basically had a one fish cushion on the field. When Evers got up Sunday, he noted the stiff south wind and knew the Elk would be viable option for the final day. "Those fish were there all week," he said. "I didn't know there were that many fish, though. The Elk is so finicky. I've told so many people that it won't be won there, but sure enough..." He went to town with a small finesse jig tied with living rubber strands.

"It's something you need in a clear-water situation," he said. "I caught them pretty early, within 90 minutes to 2 hours." Because of how clear the water was, he made long pitches and short casts to logs that were wedged on the flat, which was 3 to 5 feet deep and had a mixed silty and rocky bottom. "Those fish were relating to the veins in the flat where it's a little deeper," he said. "The best laydowns had an undercut next to them and that dark spot is where they could hide, facing up current." Fortunate for Evers, 5th-place finisher Randy Howell fished right through the same area on day 2, but didn't catch much, likely because the wind wasn't as intense. "This lake is so phenomenal," Evers said. "When you hit it right, you don't always see the big weights because the big fields they get divide it up. With 50 guys, if the lake was in prime condition, we could catch that. It's special. I've never caught that kind of bag on this lake. With a major accomplishment crossed off his career to-do list, Evers has little time to soak it in. The Elite Series season kicks off next in Florida. "I'm going to enjoy this for a few minutes, but don't think for a second I'm not going to try to win Angler of the Year this year," he said. "I haven't given any event two seconds of thoughts since they announced the schedule. All of my energy and thoughts have all been about Grand."

Winning Gear Notes:

Jig gear: 7' heavy-action casting rod, casting reel (6.2:1 gear ratio), 12-pound fluorocarbon line, 5/16-oz. Andy's Custom Bass Lures E Series Finesse jig (green craw), Zoom Critter Craw (green-pumpkin) trailer.

Cranking gear: 7' medium-action crankin' stick, same reel, 10-pound fluorocarbon line, Megabass Flap Slap (sexy French pearl).

Evers applied some wire to the front of the Flap Slap so it would suspend like a jerkbait - that was key since a lot of the bites he got on it would come on the pause. Evers caught most of his day-2 fish flipping a Zoom Z-Hog Jr. (black/blue) on a 3/0 Mustad Denny Brauer Grip Pin Max flipping hook. He also caught fish on a 1/2-oz. War Eagle tandem willow spinnerbait (chartreuse/white).

Main factor: "I think it was making good decisions all week. I made good decisions on day 2 and caught 17 pounds. I fished three completely different areas all three days."

Performance edge: "The new Lowrance StructureScan. Being able to see so far left and right in that really shallow water. I could see those objects from a long way away, especially after it got windy and I couldn't see them visually. I could line up on a log and make a long cast to it. That stuff's amazing and how far you can see in the shallow water."

Bassmaster Classic Winning Pattern BassFan 3/8/16 (Todd Ceisner)

Jason Christie appeared to be in complete control of the 2016 Bassmaster Classic through the first 2 days of the 3-day event. All the while, however, he knew he was fishing a program that was waning day by day. He'd known it for almost a week. Had the derby taken place the prior weekend, when water temperatures were still in the mid-40s at Oklahoma's Grand Lake O' the Cherokees, Christie might've scaled multiple sacks similar to the 29-03 haul that good friend Edwin Evers used to beat him on Sunday. He connected with multiple 6-pounders and one that topped 8 through the early portion of the 4-day official practice period, but then his action began to taper off. His simplistic pattern (throwing a heavy spinnerbait at depths of 1 to 6 feet over staging areas in pockets and creeks located in the mid-lake region) was still good enough to give the resident of nearby Park Hill, Okla. a lead of nearly 6 pounds headed into the final day. But even a reprisal of his best bag of the event (a 20-14 stringer on day 1) wouldn't have been nearly enough to hold off Evers, who masterfully exploited the final-day conditions to prevail by a double-digit margin.

Once Grand went off-limits to Classic competitors on Jan. 1, Christie turned his attention to nearby Lake Tenkiller, which featured very similar conditions to what was transpiring on Grand. It's the body of water he grew up on and he was on it nearly ever day in February. "I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do (in the Classic), and fishing here (at Tenkiller), I was able to experiment with different baits," he said. "That's where I developed a lot of confidence in the spinnerbait. "When (official) practice started that Friday, I had three spinnerbait setups laid out, and one jig and one crankbait. That's what I was going to try to win on." The blade (a hefty 1-ounce Booyah model with a single No. 6 gold Colorado blade) won out. He used it to pull a 4-pounder from 2 feet of water very early on that first practice day and, for awhile, things only got better from there. "I didn't really catch the quality I wanted that day, but I caught a fish that was over 8 pounds and maybe a dozen 3- to 4-pounders. I consider a 3 1/2 a male at that time of year - they're the ones that move up early."

He was determined to avoid the Elk River and its relatively clear water, knowing that it would draw a large portion of the 55-angler field (ironically, that's where Evers caught his gigantic bag on the final day). He spent that first day between Shangri-La Marina and the mouth of the Elk, and then switched to the stretch between Drowning Creek and Shangri-La the next day. "That's the mid-lake section that I really like to fish," he said. "Every bite I got that day was from big females - they were staging on the stuff I expected them to be on. I saw 29 or 30-pound stringers that day. "Then it was pretty warm that night and the wind blew the next day, and that's when things started to change. Those big fish started to move and when that happens, they become unpredictable. I was still getting enough bites, though, and I thought I'd be okay." He thinks the moon phase was also a big factor - perhaps even bigger than the rising water temperature. "When we started practice on Friday there was still a pretty bright moon and a lot of big ones were up shallow. As we got further and further away from that, some of them started pulling back out. "I honestly don't know exactly where they go when that happens. I wish I did, but unless I had a transmitter on them, I wouldn't be able to answer that." Nonetheless, he was all-in with the spinnerbait by the time the final practice day concluded on Wednesday. "A lot of these guys are great at making adjustments, but I'm stubborn and pig-headed," he said during the media day session on Thursday. "I'm either going to make it happen the way I want it to happen, or it's not going to happen."

Competition:

Christie caught a couple of stout females early on day 1, which made him think that a good percentage of them had moved back to the areas they'd occupied the previous weekend. He later deduced, though, that it was a matter of circumstances and timing. "I think what was happening is they were up shallow when (the Grand River Dam Authority) was running water, then when they shut it off there'd be a lull. In the afternoon, some would move up again." Indeed, he made three culls in the final half-hour of the day that pushed his stringer well past the 20-pound mark that nobody else managed to reach until Evers went wild on the final day. Still, he didn't think his initial haul was as big as it turned out to be. "When I came in and loaded the boat, I thought I had 17 or 18 pounds and that'd put me in 7th to 9th place, which was a good position. Then when I saw I was leading, I said, 'All right, you've got to tough it out with what you've got. Just grind it out because the fishing's not that easy.''' He did pretty much the same thing on day 2, but came in more than 4 pounds lighter despite another big late-afternoon cull. He was certain he'd be knocked out of the lead, but instead ended up with a 5-11 advantage over 2nd-place Todd Faircloth, with Evers a little more than 6 1/4 pounds back in 3rd. His less-than-stellar action the previous Sunday and on the final practice day gave him the idea that the blistering wind (in excess of 20 mph) would not be his friend on day 3.

"I started the day where I'd been catching some each morning and I fished some new water and some other stuff, really just bouncing around," he said. "I had 12-something (pounds) pretty early with two good fish and two smaller ones and I thought I was right on pace with what I needed to do. I felt that if I came in with 17 or 18, I'd at least have a chance. "Then the guy on the bank told me that Edwin had 25 and I quit fishing for 17 pounds and just started running staging areas looking for big females. I knew I had to have a big bag." That wasn't to be, however, as he failed to generate a bite over the final 4 hours of the day. "Maybe the guy did me a favor by telling me that, but I had a 30-pound day in practice doing what I'd been doing to that point. It's hard to say. "Before he said that I was just running the pattern in the flats and creeks and stuff and I was kind of on schedule. If I'd stayed with it I'm pretty sure I could've caught 17 to 19 pounds, but that wouldn't have been enough."

Pattern:

Christie said the precise cover he targeted in each pocket or creek was a little bit different than the others. "They were all staging areas, like maybe the main point in a pocket, where they'd hold up. It was their last stop before they'd go to the back (to begin the spawning ritual). Some were on points and some were on flats." He tossed his spinnerbait very close to the bank and then slow-rolled it back. "Most of the bites were in the 3- to 4-foot range, but occasionally I'd get a random one real shallow."

Winning Gear:

Spinnerbait gear: 6'11" medium-heavy Falcon Cara Jason Christie Signature Series frog rod, Team Lew's Lite casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 22-pound Sunline Flipping FC fluorocarbon line, 1-ounce Booyah spinnerbait with gold No. 6 Colorado blade (black/chartreuse in cloud cover or chartreuse/white/blue under sunny skies), YUM Pulse trailer (white). He said the line, which alternates between clear and high-visibility green every 3 feet, allowed him to visually detect some subtle bites.

Main factor: "Just being committed to what I was doing - fishing that big bait in dirty water. I only hooked one fish in practice on a crankbait. I just didn't have the confidence in that mud to fish something slow or throw something small. I wanted something that would catch their attention. They weren't picky - if you got something in front of them, they'd eat it."

Performance edge: "Everything plays a big part, but the combination of the new mapping by Garmin and the Panoptix was critical. The most consistent area I had, I never knew how it laid out until I got the Garmin. With the Panoptix, I was looking for rocks and shallow brush piles and things like that, and on the first day one of my big ones came from a rock that I'd picked up on it."

Grand Lake Classic Runner-Up Pattern BassFan 3/9/16 (John Johnson)

Aaron Martens went way old-school for this one and cranked an ancient Luhr-Jensen Speed Trap. He said he's had the bait since he was about 17 years old; he's 44 now. "On the third day of practice I caught 20-plus pounds on it, and then I thought I totally had a chance to win," he said. "It was just tough to get bit consistently. "The second day of practice I blanked - I caught like 15 drum. I was sitting in my camper and I was mad, and then the light came on in my head. I basically called myself a dumb (butt). I was up until 3 o'clock in the morning re-rigging all my tackle. "I'd been fishing a little too deep and a little too slow," he continued. Enter the Speed Trap. He threw it in all sorts of places - behind cable riggings, at sunken brush piles or stairways, across broken-down building foundations, etc. "It was very random," he said. "The fish could be anywhere." He pulled most of them from depths of 2 to 4 feet, but had to go a little deeper (6 or 7 feet) on the final day.

Cranking gear: 7'2" medium-action Enigma Aaron's Edge rod, Shimano Metanium casting reel (7.4:1 ratio), 10-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, Luhr-Jensen Speed Trap (white/fire tiger or brown crawdad).

Main factor: "Just figuring out what I needed to do after the second day of practice."

Performance edge: "I put (Gamakatsu) G-Finesse hooks on my crankbaits. When a fish gets that hook, he never gets off. I snagged about half the fish I weighed in; other guys told me they snagged a lot, too, but they lost a lot of them. I didn't lose them."

Classic Patterns 3-6 BassFan 3/10/16 (John Johnson)

Bill Lowen was on a sizzling crankbait bite during practice. He was fishing the dirtiest water in the lake, which was down by the Pensacola Dam. Unfortunately, that program didn't hold up once competition got under way. "The cranking deal totally went away," he said. "I was still catching them on Wednesday (the final practice day) - I would've had 24 pounds. "I started the first morning 100 percent cranking and I think I caught two. I kept trying it every day just to make sure I didn't miss it if it came back, but it never would work again. I think the warming water changed that bite. I saw it go from 45 degrees to 52 and I think it shocked them." He ended up catching his fish on a flipping stick in the same general areas. "They were close. I basically concentrated on the last deep water in the back of a pocket or creek. All the fish came from 2 to 6 foot (depths)."

Flipping gear: 7'6" heavy-action Castaway rod, Team Lew's Lite casting reel (7.5:1 ratio), 20-pound Hi-Seas fluorocarbon line, 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook, 1/4-ounce Reins Tungsten weight, 4" Tightlines UV Bill Lowen Flipp'n Tube (black/blue). He also flipped a 1/2-ounce Lure Parts Online black/blue jig trailed by a Tightlines UV Bubba Craw (black/blue). He used the same rod, reel and line set-up.

Main factor: "I had a great practice - I was in the right area with the right quality of fish. When the bite changed I didn't get spun out and start running the lake. I figured out how to catch them."

Performance edge: "I'd say it had to be a combo of everything."

Classic Patterns 3-6 BassFan 3/10/16 (John Johnson)

Just about everyone expected the Classic to be a jerkbait-dominated affair throughout the winter. However, when the water failed to clear up in the wake of the December flood, that idea was nixed. Few competitors even bothered tying one on last week. Randy Howell was an exception. The Livingston Lures Jerkmaster 121C was one of four offerings he employed to catch weigh-in fish, along with a spinnerbait and a crankbait. "Practice went okay," he said. "I wasn't catching them like gangbusters, but the ones I did catch were big fish. The wind blew all through practice and I was almost 100 percent cranking on the rip-rap and the rocks. "Then the wind calmed down for the tournament and that (action) slowed down. I hadn't planned on throwing the jerkbait at all because of the water color, but I picked it up on the first day after I'd had some short strikes on the crankbait. I caught a 3-pounder, so I started chasing that pattern then." He spent the entire tournament in the Elk River, where the warmest water on the lake could be found (it hit 58 degrees before the event concluded). On day 2, he fished the exact spot where Evers caught his massive final-day bag. "On day 3 I started about a mile from that flat and I was working my way to it, and I came around the corner and he was right dead on where I was on the second day. I could see those fish swimming around in the calm water, but I couldn't make them bite. "He said he had a big stringer and he had a chance to win, so I let him stay there and I moved on. I caught one more good one up ahead of him a little ways." He said most of the fish he caught appeared to be about ready to go to the beds. "They were fat and they had bright red bellies. I was surprised that they were that colorful already."

Jerkbait gear: 7' medium-light Daiwa Tatula rod, Daiwa Tatula CT Type-R casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 12-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, Livingston Lures Jerkmaster 121C (Table Rock shad).

Spinnerbait gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Daiwa Steez XT rod, same reel (7.3:1 ratio), 16-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Hawg Caller spinnerbait (chartreuse shad with No. 4 1/2 silver Colorado and No. 3 nickel willow-leaf blades).

Cranking gear: Same rod, reel and line as jerkbait, Livingston Lures Howeller Dream Master Classic (Okie craw). He caught one quality fish on the final day on a Texas-rigged 5" Yamamoto Senko (green-pumpkin/purple/green).

Main factor: "I was really happy that I stayed open-minded. As the fish and the conditions changed each day, I changed with them."

Performance edge: "The new Insight Genesis mapping for the Lowrance. They gave it to us right when we got there and it was really accurate on those channels. I could run the flats and stay on the places that had a hard bottom and find right where the drains were coming into the flats."

Classic Patterns 3-6 BassFan 3/10/16 (John Johnson)

Todd Faircloth fished a lot of history and it resulted in yet another high Classic finish. "I caught a lot of fish from the same area where I caught them the time we were here before," said the Texan, who was 9th in the 2013 Classic at Grand. "I was basically fishing channel-swing banks and I caught them on wood, rock and docks. "Any type of cover was good as long as it was the right type of bank. If it wasn't the right type, they wouldn't be on it." He confined himself to the stretch from the Elk River down to Honey Creek. Most of his bites were on a small jig, but he caught about six weigh-in fish on a crankbait. "The first couple days, when we had bright, calm conditions, the back sides of docks were best."

Jig gear: 7' heavy-action Castaway Invicta Series rod, Shimano Curado casting reel (7:1 ratio), 10-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 1/4-ounce Strike King Bitsy Bug jig (brown/orange), Strike King Baby Rodent trailer (green-pumpkin).

Cranking gear: 7'2" Castaway Todd Faircloth Signature Series shallow cranking rod, Shimano Core casting reel (6:1 ratio), 10-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon, Strike King Lucky Shad (orange bream).

Main factor: "Just understanding that fishing was tough and having the mindset that I wasn't going to get a whole lot of bites. I fished slowly throughout the tournament and I was real precise with everything."

Performance edge: "I'd say that little jig. I've caught them on it the last two times I've been here."

Classic Patterns 3-6 BassFan 3/10/16 (John Johnson)