How Edwin Evers won the Conroe BPT

Here’s how Edwin Evers won the second Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour tourney at Lake Conroe, TX:

> “I found out through Andy Montgomery that the area I fished was closed off due to dredging [in practice] and I didn’t realize it because I didn’t try to go in there in practice.”

Which meant that Edwin had a spawning area all to himself — huge:

> “It was just a man-made canal…really shallow at the mouth of it and then got deeper, like 5′ deep…about 50 yards wide.

> “It was nasty [water color] when I went in there — I can only imagine what it looked like when they were dredging. Once I got in there, it cleaned up [6-8” viz].

> “It had what you needed for spawning. The biggest thing is it was protected — highly protected from the wind. It was starting to clean up because the backs of creeks are the first things to clean up. And it had natural shorelines.

> “Bulkheads had to have a foot of water on them [for spawning], but a lot were in 2-4′ and…when I figured out where I got my bites, you had to be shallow as shallow could be.

> “I just happened to find an area I had to myself. I had that spot and another one that I never did go to the final day.”

How he fished

> “I couldn’t see anything [beds] — I was just pitching to the bank. I was trying to picture little indentations, points — undercut banks had a little bit deeper water up to the bank and those were the key stretches. I was pretending the spawning fish were moving up.

> “Those bigger females seemed to be out a little deeper…. A lot of times I caught those fish on the vibrating jig. The day I found those fish in the tournament those females were on those beds. Then it got cold and they backed out.

> “The final day I just kept going around [in the canal], doing circles, just to have a different angle to throw to fish and targets.”

His winning baits

> #1 bait was a Berkley Pit Boss (b/b), 3/0 Berkley Fusion19 flipping hook, 3/8-oz Bass Pro Shops tungsten weight, 20-lb BPS XPS fluoro, 7′ 6″ H Johnny Morris Rod, Johnny Morris Platinum Reel (8.3).

> #2 bait was a 7/16-oz Andy’s Custom E Series Finesse Jig (same bait he won the Grand Classic on) in “green craw” with a 2.75″ Berkley Powerbait Meaty Chunk (gp), 17-lb XPS fluoro, 7′ 3″ H BPS Carbonlite rod, same reel.

> He caught an 8-lber on a dropshot: 4.75″ Berkley Bottom Hopper (junebug), 1/0 straight-shank hook, 1/4-oz BPS tungsten weight, 20-lb BPS XPS braid (yellow) to 10-lb XPS fluoro, 6′ 9″ M Johnny Morris Platinum Rod, Platinum Reel size 3/3000.

> 1/2-oz “Brett Hite’s bait” (lol, gp with gp trailer), 20-lb XPS fluoro, 7′ 1″ MH Platinum Rod, same reel but 6.8 retrieve.

More

> “A couple things were real important. With my Navionics mapping — I got it updated — you can really see the shallow areas so you can differentiate between the bulkheads and the natural shoreline…. And I was able to pull up Google Earth on my Lowrance, which was really helpful. I was basically in search mode from the start.”