High Marks For High Water

NOT MANY OF the 88 contestants fishing today’s Bassmaster Elite Series competed in or even remember the 1995 Bassmaster Superstars tournament on the Illinois River in Peoria, Ill., but Jay Yelas won’t ever forget it. He won the event with more than 30 pounds, all by fishing in a farmer’s milo field.

“The river had flooded out of its banks and nearly inundated the field, too,” remembers Yelas, winner of the 2002 Bassmaster Classic, “but there was a high spot in the field that was still dry, and the bass had pushed right in against that edge, in less than a foot of water. They simply couldn’t go any further.

“In rising water, most of the time bass will move up with the water, and that tournament was a good example.”

Fellow Elite pro Patrick Walters agrees with Yelas. Considering his age, he wasn’t in that Superstars event,