DECATUR, Ala. — Edwin Evers was in eighth place on Saturday and looked to be in good position to move up in the standings.However, one mistake cost him dearly in the final round. Evers’ livewell quite running and his five keepers died. Not only did each dead bass cost him 8 ounces, but he was required by the rules to throw back a 2½-pounder that he caught when he lifted the lid and discovered what had happened.At one point I was sight-fishing and working the trim tab without really looking at it,” said Evers prior to Sunday’s weigh-in. “The livewell control is right next to it, and I guess I accidentally hit it. Bad mistake.”Evers finished in 26th place. Wheeler’s world-class drum and lamprey
If drum could have been weighed in with bass during the Dixie Duel, the standings would be a lot different than they wound up. Among the competitors who loaded the boat with bruiser drum was Gary Klein, who joked about his “drum pattern.””I’d like a stringer of bass that weighed as much as the drum I caught in this tournament,” said the Texas pro. “I had a huge 20-pounder on Thursday, then 15-pounders on Saturday and Sunday.If Klein got to weigh his drum, Brent Chapman might have insisted he weighed his lampreys. Chapman caught three bass in the final round that had lampreys attached to them, and threw back a few more small bass with the nasty-looking critters attached.
Mark Menendez grew so desperate during the Dixie Duel that he stooped to the unthinkable: he fished a Carolina rig.”I hate fishing Carolina rigs, but when I tried it the other day in practice just junk fishing it worked, so I kept it up. Hey, it’s not so bad,” said Menendez, who finished eighth.Jason Williamson might have given Menendez a big I-told-you-so. Much of Williamson’s 17th-place stringer came on Carolina rigs.