(May. 23, 2003 – MONTGOMERY, AL.)… In layman’s terms Kenyon Hill is kicking butt in the CITGO Bassmaster Tour presented by Busch Beer event on the Alabama River. The only thing is no one is really paying any attention.
In one of the wilder days in Bassmaster competition the leader of the
event took a backseat to several things, including Jay Yelas winning the
Busch BASS Angler of the Year title, the final field being set for the
CITGO Bassmaster Classic, and a disqualification that affected all of
those things.
No one in the sport has ever seen a day quite like this one.
There are a couple of anglers who would rather they hadn’t seen it
They don’t include Hill whose two-day total is 36 pounds. He’s followed
by Yelas, who put an exclamation point to his Angler of the Year title,
by moving to second with 34 pounds, 1 ounce. Yelas is already guaranteed a $100,000 payday by virtue of the title, and could add another $100,000 in the next two days.
Those remaining in the way include Pete Ponds of Madison, Miss. (3rd
place with 32-6); Harold Allen of Shelbyville, Texas (4th, 31-0); Peter
E. Thliveros of Jacksonville, Fla. (5th, 30-3); Takahiro Omori of Emory,
Texas (6th, 29-5); Edwin Evers of Mannsville, Okla. (7th, 26-15); Mark
Davis of Mount Ida, Ark. (8th, 26-1); Brent Chapman of Shawnee, Kan.
(9th, 24-11); Jeff Kriet of Ardmore, Okla. (10th, 24-12); Mark Menendez
of Paducah, Ky. (11th, 24-2) and Zell Rowland of Montgomery, Texas (12th,
23-12).
Missing from that field is Dustin Wilks of Raleigh, N.C. Wilks finished
the day in 8th place with 26-11, but was disqualified after he realized
that he had unknowingly fished within 800 feet of one of the dams on the
river. The area was off limits. As a result, his second day weight was
erased and Wilks dropped to 42nd place.
The disqualification produced a topsy-turvy outcome for several of the
anglers. For starters, Rowland moved into the semi-final 12. But the
action had far-reaching impacts, including how the Classic field shaped up.
Prior to Wilks’ disqualification, the last man in the field was Joe Thomas, who was tied with Matt Reed in 42nd place in the point standings. Thomas, by virtue of catching just 4 pounds, 5 ounces more during the
course of the season, was in the Classic.
After the disqualification though, the point standings were calculated
again, and this time Matt Reed came out on top and moved into the Classic.
“Devastating,” is all Thomas could say. It is the ninth time in Thomas’
career that he has fallen out of the Classic in the final day of competition.
The little bit of drama of the second day, though, won’t be hard to
overcome in the semi-final round. All of the anglers in the semi-final
are guaranteed a spot in the Classic and the Angler of the Year race is over.
But all of the anglers will start at zero on Saturday and move to a
six-hole course on Lake Jordon, just upriver from the last two days’
tournament waters.
BASS tournament director, Trip Weldon, bills the new water as the premier spotted bass fishery in the country. Weights are expected to be heavy and with the top anglers in the country laying it on the line, “There’s a whole lot of excitement left,” Weldon said.
The majority of the anglers in the semi-final field caught the stringers
of largemouth and spotted bass in extreme shallow water. Many of them
like Hill and Yelas, targeted the waters directly below one of two dams
that flow out of Lake Jordon and eventually into the Alabama River.
For Yelas, his stringers were caught in a no-man’s land just 500-yards
below Jordon Dam on the Coosa River. The area is basically inaccessible when the river is at normal flow and could be treacherous. Yelas, though, made up his mind early on that is where he would fish the tournament.
“My strategy was to get there whatever it took,” Yelas said. “I knew I
would either knock my prop off or win the Angler of the Year.”
It was an almost identical situation to his Classic victory 10 months
earlier on the same river, but further upriver on Lay Lake.
“I have an affinity for that type water,” he said. “I won the Classic
like that and it gets in your blood.”
The difference in the final two days of the event, though, is the
six-hole course is set right above the dam on Lake Jordon.
The tournament resumes Saturday at 6 a.m. with the weigh in starting at
3:30 p.m.
TELEVISION
The event from Montgomery will be telecast on ESPN2 in two parts. Part
one airs May 31 at 10:30 a.m. (ET) and part two will air on June 7 at
10:30 a.m. The season finale will also be telecast at a special time, 6
p.m. on June 22 on ESPN2.
BASS SPONSORS
Sponsors of the CITGO Bassmaster Tour presented by Busch Beer include CITGO Petroleum Corp., Busch Beer, Chevrolet Trucks, Yamaha Outboards, Mercury Marine, Skeeter Boats, Triton Boats, Lowrance Electronics, Flowmaster Exhaust Systems, Kumho Tires, Progressive Boat Insurance, Abu Garcia, Berkley, Diamond Cut Jeans, MotorGuide Trolling Motors, Bass Pro Shops, Armstrong Industrial Hand Tools, and BankOne.
Associate Sponsors include Bass Cat Boats, G3 Boats and Bryant Heating and Cooling.
Sponsored locally by the City of Montgomery; State of Alabama Department of Conservation and Jubilee Cityfest.
By: Fish Factory
