Elite 50 Series Heads to Alabama

PRATTVILLE, Ala. — The Alabama River is used to being the site of high-stakes,
big-league fishing events. Last year, it was the scene of the 2003 CITGO Bassmaster
Tour season finale where the CITGO Bassmaster Angler of the Year trophy and
invitations to the CITGO Bassmaster Classic were awarded.

This time around, it is the third of four Bassmaster Elite 50 series events that
takes to the water June 2-5. The Elite 50 Tour highlights an all-star line-up in the
sport’s first no-entry-fee circuit with a guaranteed paycheck for every participant
— a milestone in the sport. Also on the line at the end of the 4 event series are
10 invitations to the CITGO Bassmaster Classic this summer in Charlotte N.C.

The Elite 50 series marks the first time that an entire tournament trail matches the
cream of the crop of today’s bass pros in limited-field events. These 50 top pros
earned their Elite status through either their combined performance over the past
three CITGO Bassmaster Tour seasons or based on a career of excellence that placed
them atop of the BASS all-time money list.

Under the Elite 50 format, the entire field will compete on the Alabama River for
the first two qualifying days before moving to a six-hole course on the river for
the semi-finals and finals. This event is a showdown format in which the top 12 pros
and amateurs will see their weights zeroed after the second weigh-in. The anglers
will then rotate through a preset course on Friday. All anglers will receive one
hour and 20 minutes per hole. The top-six pros will fish the course again on
Saturday.

“I think this might be the best of the four places we have fished or will fish in
the Elite 50s because of the nice-sized spotted bass and largemouth mixture,” said
Alabama’s Gerald Swindle, the reigning CITGO Bassmaster Angler of the Year and the
event’s local favorite. “In the summertime heat and (with) them pulling current,
generally the spots bite. If the water remains low and clearing up, there might
actually be some topwater fish caught in this event, which we haven’t had yet. That
may be a bonus. Even though it’s the middle of the day, they still bite topwaters
here if the water is clear and they can see it.

“I would look for the fishing on a scale of one to 10 to be around a seven or eight
if I had to rate it. I still look at 15-16 pounds being a big one-day catch and
maybe 10 pounds a day to make the cut.”

The Elite 50 pros who competed on the Alabama River in 2003 will find completely
different conditions this time. Instead of the high, flooded river conditions that
dominated last May’s tournament, it is at it’s usual early summer level.

“It was flooded and muddy last year, but we still caught them,” Swindle said. “It’s
going to look totally different to these guys, totally different. All of that
upriver stuff that Jay (Yelas) went to, you can never get back up there again.
That’s done. That will all be solid rocks and rapids. You can’t even get within a
mile or two of where he went.”

Last year, Texan Jay Yelas earned his first Angler of the Year title and finished
ninth by navigating a set of rapids to reach the tailrace of the Jordon dam where he
enjoyed a rare luxury in big-league tournaments — solitude. He was one of several
pros who utilized jetboats (which do not use conventional propeller-drive outboards)
to reach shallow bass sanctuaries in the river, a strategy that Swindle considers
out of reach.

“Matter of fact, there’s probably going to be some guys (who) knock lower units off
8 or 9 miles downriver from that, trying to get up to where they think they can
get,” Swindle said. “It’s pretty treacherous up in the upper end, and when it
flooded like that it gave them a false sense of security because you think it’s deep
everywhere. But at normal pool it’s pretty treacherous.

“Even the guys in jetboats are going to run into some snags trying to get up the
river. And I don’t think a lot of them are calculating that it’s almost 30 miles up
there. So it will be almost an hour run in a jetboat just to get there. So that’s
going to be a time-killer, and gas consumption will be an issue.”

Yelas, however, is undeterred.

“I’m going to try to get back up there,” Yelas said. “I’m going to get a jetboat
again because I doubt the river will be flooded again this year. That was really a
fluke thing having the water so high last year. I might have company this time.”

Swindle looks for the most successful Elite 50 pros to score shallow.

“I think it’s probably going to be won flipping,” he said. “We haven’t had that hot
of a summer and the fish haven’t made it out to their summertime patterns. There’s
still a lot of fish around the bank. And the river has a lot of bank grass and other
shallow-water cover. The fish will stay there as long as they can.

“So I look for it to be won flipping shallow — and maybe a few bites on a buzzbait,
too.”

One pre-tournament favorite has to be Oklahoma’s Kenyon Hill, who won last May’s
Tour event. He also took big-bass honors on three of the four competition days.

The daily launches will take place at Cooters Pond at 10 a.m. Daily weigh-ins will
begin at 7:15 p.m. at the Stanley-Jensen Stadium and are free to the public.

From BASS