EDWIN EVERS: So Far, So Good
TULSA, Okla. – Qualifying Round 1 of the REDCREST 2022 Presented by Costa is over, and I’m pretty excited to be in the lead. I caught 13 scorable bass today that weighed 39 pounds, 11 ounces and have a 4-1 lead over Michael Neal. More importantly, I’m about 25 pounds above the cut line to qualify for the Knockout Round, where we zero the weights and start all over again.
If you saw the live coverage today, you may have not realized that the area I fished was a place that I never even looked at in practice. I fished all-new water today, and I picked an area that I thought would have a lot of boats in it, but it didn’t. I was one of the last boats out, so I figured there was no way I could get there before my competitors. Luckily, I was wrong. Because everything lined up just right for that area — wind, traffic, water color, etc. — I felt I could fish there efficiently. I wasn’t sure I could be that efficient in some of the areas I found in practice because of wind and other concerns.
Once I got there, I wound up staying almost all day. I left with about an hour to go in the final period and did some scouting. I had 35 pounds when I left, and I managed to catch a 4-11 while checking out another area at the end of the day. That fish put me in the lead.
My catch today came on a pretty wide variety of lures. Quite a few fish came on a Berkley Stunna jerkbait, but I also caught scorable bass on several Berkley crankbaits and even a MaxScent bait or two. The right baits were critical.
So was my Lowrance ActiveTarget unit. If you’ve been hearing a lot about forward-facing sonar lately, there’s a good reason for that. It works, and it gives me information I never had before.
With ActiveTarget, I can see fish in real-time and cast right to them. I can even watch how they react to my baits and adjust my presentation based on what I see. It’s changed the way I fish a lot of days, and this is definitely a time of year when it plays a big role in my approach. I bet I saw 90% of the bass I caught today on ActiveTarget before I ever cast to them.
It looks like the weather will be pretty much the same on Thursday for Qualifying Day 2. That means I’ll be doing a lot of the same stuff. I’ll probably even go back and fish that same area I was in today.
But if I can catch some fish early and feel comfortable about advancing to the Knockout Round, you’ll see me doing some more scouting. I’ll run around the lake checking places I found during the practice period. Fish move daily at this time of year, and what I found just a couple of days ago could have changed a bunch. I’ll be using ActiveTarget to help with that. It’ll show me how the fish are relating to cover and structure. If they’re not positioned the way I think they need to be, I’ll keep looking until I find some that are.
Because of the way we’re seeding the qualifiers for the Knockout Round, there might be some advantages to finishing second or third in the Qualifying Rounds. The winner of the Qualifying Rounds will fish in Knockout Group B on Saturday, while the second and third-place finishers will fish on Friday.
There’s likely to be a lot less boat traffic on Friday, and I think I’d prefer that.
But I’ll be excited just to get to the next round. After all, you can’t win if you’re not there, and I’m going to do everything I can to make it.
Stay tuned!