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Rollin’ Martin
Bass legacy defeats reigning Forrest Wood Open champ Martens for $200,000
By Jeff Schroeder - 26.Jun.2004
 PLATTSBURGH,
N.Y. – He said it would take a 17- or 18-pound sack to win it, and that’s just
what Scott Martin caught Saturday. Emerging from the pack with a five-bass limit
weighing 17 pounds, 12 ounces, the Clewiston, Fla., pro won the Wal-Mart FLW
Tour regular-season closer at Lake Champlain, claimed $200,000 and upended Aaron
Martens’ bid to repeat as Forrest Wood Open champion.
“I’m so proud to win this one because Forrest has been a part of my life since I
was born,” Martin said about Ranger Boats founder Forrest Wood.
Martin is the son of TV fishing legend Roland Martin, and you’ve probably seen
him fishing on camera since the time he could first hold a rod. Incidentally,
with this win Scott Martin picked up right where his father left off. The last
time Roland Martin won a tour-level bass event was in a 1997 BASS tournament at
Lake Champlain.
But with his second FLW Tour win as a pro (his first was at the Pascagoula River
in 2000) and over a half-million dollars in FLW Outdoors career earnings, the
younger Martin is making his own mark these days. Plus, this bass-packed fishery
on the New York-Vermont border seems tailor-made to his strengths. For most of
the anglers here, this event was about finding spawning fish and keeping track
of them throughout the week. Martin makes no bones about his reliance on GPS
technology during tournaments. Two years ago, he worked his Garmin waypoints
into a fourth-place finish in FLW competition here. This year, he figured out
how to take it to the next step.
“(Three-time FLW champ) Clark Wendlandt once said, ‘You can never win these
four-day tournaments if you fish in the same spot twice,’” said Martin, who had
some 500 waypoints marking smallmouth spawning beds in his Garmin by the
tournament’s start. “I wouldn’t have been able to keep my weights up
consistently if I fished the same areas each day.”
The winner fished the Burlington area of Lake Champlain the first two days and
kept his focus strictly on smallies. By days three and four, he moved to the
northeast portion of the lake and fished the Inland Sea area. Anglers hit many
of the shallow smallmouth areas pretty hard the first two days, but by catching
a limit early Wednesday and Thursday, Martin was able to use his time scouting a
few key spots he could use Friday and Saturday.
“I saw a lot of areas that hadn’t been picked through yet,” said Martin, who
said he saved his heavier fish until today. “I caught four of my biggest fish
today within a hundred yards of each other. Yesterday, I knew that I needed a
big bag, so I had been kind of saving this one spot. I really spent a lot of
time GPSing things and concentrating on areas that were otherwise too windy or
too rough for people to fish earlier in the week.”
By throwing jerkbaits as well as sight-fishing with tubes in Saturday’s calm,
slick water and sunny weather, he caught two bass that were each in the crucial
4-pound range and two more around 3 pounds. His winning two-day weight in the
finals – 10 smallmouth bass worth 32 pounds, 8 ounces – topped Martens by over 2
pounds.
“It’s hard to win a tournament with only smallmouths,” he said. “But I enjoy
catching these smallmouths so much, I don’t want to catch largemouths.”
Martens makes bank again at Open
While he couldn’t come up with a repeat performance of his 2003 Forrest Wood
Open title at Pickwick Lake, Aaron Martens didn’t feel defeated Saturday. He has
cleared $300,000 in just this tournament alone the last two years and has also
now eclipsed the half-million-dollar mark in FLW career earnings.
“$100,000, that’s still pretty good money,” said the pro from Castaic, Calif.,
whose two-day weight of 30 pounds, 4 ounces earned him second place at Lake
Champlain.
For Martens, who donned a wide-brimmed hat to keep out the sun and also went
sight-fishing, Saturday was about finding occupied spawning beds.
“I think about 90 percent of the fish in this lake are on beds right now,” he
said. “Today, I saw a lot them that had been picked clean.”
Rookie Newton rises to third
Jonathan Newton of Rogersville, Ala., caught 1 ounce less than Martens and
finished third with a final-round weight of 30 pounds 3 ounces. A two-time
EverStart Series champion but FLW rookie, he won $50,000 in just his third FLW
tournament fished.
“It’s been a great week. If it hadn’t been for Andy Morgan talking me into
coming, I wouldn’t even have been here,” Newton said, saying that making the
trek to upstate New York from Alabama to fish had been a last-minute decision.
Newton caught his limits in the finals by sight-fishing flats.
Blaukat fourth
Day-three leader Randy Blaukat of Lamar, Mo., finished fourth and collected
$40,000 with a final-round weight of 29 pounds, 7 ounces.
“These are the first bedding fish that I’ve caught in, like, eight years,” he
said. “I just don’t like to do it, but I had to this week. Right at the end of
the day I caught my biggest one.”
Walker fifth
Day-one leader David Walker of Sevierville, Tenn., made his long run south to
his largemouth area Saturday, but came up short. He caught 29 pounds even in the
finals, finished fifth and collected $30,000.
“I feel as good as you can, and I’m mad as (heck) at the same time,” he said. “I
did everything right and caught everything that bit, but the big ones just
weren’t there for me.”
Walker estimated that he ran approximately 560 miles throughout the week.
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 pro finishers at Lake Champlain’s Forrest Wood Open are
opening-round leader Rob Kilby of Hot Springs, Ark., with a final-round total
weight of 27 pounds, 1 ounce (6th place, $28,000); Chris Baumgardner of
Gastonia, N.C., with 26-11 (7th, $26,000); Dan Morehead of Paducah, Ky., with
26-8 (8th, $24,000); Charlie Hartley of Grove City, Okla., with 26-8 (9th,
$22,000); and Jason Kilpatrick of Satsuma, Ala., with 16-12 (10th, $20,000).
All of the pros caught limits both days of the final round except Kilpatrick,
who weighed in four bass Saturday.
Coming up
The next FLW Tour stop is the Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship, scheduled for Lake
Logan Martin near Birmingham, Ala., Aug. 11-14.
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