Grand Lake has always been one of Tommy Martin's favorite tournament venues. He won the 1995 B.A.S.S. Oklahoma Invitational at Grand and last week, he posted his best finish of the season there with a 19th-place result. It was his second straight money finish following three straight bombs to open the FLW Tour schedule.
He was 72nd after day 1 with a 14-03 stringer, then rocketed 60 slots up the ledger with the biggest bag of day 2, a 20-07 sack that had him in 12th entering day 3.
A shift in wind direction rendered his day-2 area unfishable and he was only able to scrape together a 9-13 limit to eventually finish 19th.
"On day 1, I decided to go down toward the dam because I'd found a lot of fish there," he said. "In these big tournaments, a lot of guys get jittery about getting off to a good start and getting a quick limit because you can settle down and fish more effectively once you have five in the boat. There was just too much traffic down there.
"After watching the weigh-ins on the first day and seeing what everybody else caught, it gives you an idea of what you have to do to make a check or win it. After coming in with 14 pounds and being in 72nd place, I knew that wasn't going to do it.
"On day 2, I went to a place where I'd fished some in practice, but I'd only caught one there. Right away, I caught three 4-pounders and had four big ones by 8 a.m. I flipped a couple of the big ones and caught the others on a big 3-inch square-bill crankbait. It was just one of those days where it was just an easy day because I got off to a good start."
Coming off his big bag on day 2, he thought he could challenge for a Top-10 berth with a 15- to 17-pound stringer. His plan was stymied, however, when the wind shifted to the west and it blew a lot of debris into the areas he'd been fishing.
"I couldn't even throw in there," he said. "I'd come back and check it every so often because that stuff changes by the hour, but it was just unfishable. The third turned out to be not a good day. It was disappointing after having the biggest stringer on day 2 and then to have one of the smallest stringers on day 3. Overall, I'm happy with where I finished."
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