Evers flying under the radar?

Edwin Evers has taken a stealth approach on Kentucky Lake the last two days. If his Nitro boat didn’t look exactly like Kevin VanDam’s, he might have gone almost unnoticed.

PARIS, Tenn. — Edwin Evers has taken a stealth approach on Kentucky Lake the last two days. If his Nitro boat didn’t look exactly like Kevin VanDam’s, he might have gone almost unnoticed.

But after catching an 8-pounder to anchor a limit weighing 27-2 and taking the Day 2 lead, it will be much more difficult for Evers to sneak through the final two days of the Zippo BASSfest at Kentucky Lake presented by A.R.E. Truck Caps.

“I sat on one spot a little bit, but most of the time I did a lot of running around,” said Evers, who has a two-day total weight of 51-2 and a 3-pound, 4-ounce lead over second-place VanDam.

By continuing to be a moving target, Evers has kept much of the observer-boat traffic away from him. He described his stealth mode on Day 1, saying, “I caught a 5-pounder on one spot and never made another cast.”

Why?

“A boat was coming,” Evers explained.

Maybe it was coming toward him because the driver thought Evers was VanDam, as has been the case the last two days.

“I need to have a different color boat than Kevin,” Evers said. “I’d catch one yesterday and today and someone would say, ‘Good job, Kevin.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not Kevin. He’s down that way.’”

Evers thinks success on Kentucky Lake this week is all about location, not lures or techniques. It’s his style no matter where the Elite Series goes to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible and as late as possible in a four-day tournament. But you’ve got to have fish located in some place other than the well-known community holes on Kentucky Lake’s ledges to be able to compete in that style.

Micah Frazier, who had 26-11 and moved from 35th place to sixth place with 45-12, defined a “community hole” here, saying, “Anywhere on this lake that you can graph them, that’s a community hole.”

What’s a secret spot one day is a community hole the next at Kentucky Lake. That’s why it’s so important to play some defense in order to compliment your offense in a four-day event here.

“It’s so much about conservation of your spots and fish conservation,” said Brett Hite, who is in fifth place with 46-11. “You’re kind of holding back. If you go around burning a bunch of spots a day, it’s going to hurt you.”

Timmy Horton, who had a monster day with 27-1 to move into a third-place tie with Derek Remitz, believes those opportunities to save some bass for later are over now.

“The rest of the weekend, you can’t stop,” Horton said. “You’ve got to keep pushing. I know a lot of the guys stopped and went practicing today when they got around that 25-pound mark. I don’t think the next two days you can do that.”

But, honestly, anything can happen on this lake, no matter how well or how poorly your plan plays out. Frazier was the best example Thursday. He had only 12 pounds at 1 p.m. when he drove by a “mega community hole” and saw only one boat on it for the first time in two days. Thirty minutes later, he had 26-11.

“I culled everything I had but one,” Frazier said. “The guys that fished it all day didn’t catch a fish. Well, one guy left at one o’clock without a fish. Another guy caught one keeper all day. I was catching them 10 yards from his boat.”

Frazier smiled and added, “I think I had a color they liked.”

Something like that could end up deciding the winner of this tournament. But Edwin Evers, for one, isn’t counting on that. Saturday it will be time to unveil all the offensive weapons that he’s accumulated this week and put considerably less effort into defense. On Day 3 at Kentucky Lake, there will be no more flying under the radar.