Lou-Tel Runner-Up Pattern
Martin's Retrieve Connected With Key Smallmouths

Photo: FLW Outdoors/Rob Newell Scott Martin weighed a mix of brown and green fish over the 4 tournament days.

But last weekend's Ft. Loudoun-Tellico FLW Tour was notable because the Top 2 finishers – winner David Dudley and runner-up Scott Martin – worked somewhat different strategies.

Both recorded comparable bags in terms of weight, and both spent most or all of their time deep, but Dudley weighed largemouths, while Martin weighed a healthy mix of largemouths and bruiser smallmouths.

Martin didn't target smallmouths, he said, but they turned out to be the key to high finish. Below is a look at his pattern for the benefit of BassFans who fish this heavily trafficked venue.

Practice

Martin said he fished harder than he ever had during the official 4-day practice. He was on the water before sunrise, and off the water after sunset.

The water temperature was in the high-70s to low-80s, and the moon was full.

"When I got to Loudoun, I knew there were ways to catch fish on a Carolina-rig and jigs and things like that down on the lower end," he said. "But I noticed real quick that those areas were getting covered up by pressure. So I decided to try to get away from some of that pressure and found some fish shallow on seawalls in the mornings with a Spro Little John (crankbait). It was fairly productive for just a couple of hours in the morning.

"Then I wanted to find some deep fish," he added. "I knew that I needed that to win this tournament. And I learned a lot fishing Kentucky lake the last couple of times I'd been there. This is the Tennessee River, and this lake doesn't have the population (of bass) that Kentucky Lake does, but I pretty much sold out to deep-cranking with a Brian's Bees 18 and a (Norman) DD22."

He found a deep school or two each day on ledges that had the steepest drops he could locate, but the drops had to be facing the current, and they had to have a hard bottom. To find the hard bottom, he dragged a football-head jig over the areas.

They didn't bite the jig that well, though, and that's what gave him the confidence to focus on the crank.

"For whatever reason, the fish were keyed in on bait," he noted. "There's a lot of shad in this lake. The shad were really up on top of those flats – right against the top of the breaks. The fish really keyed on shad for their forage, but I could use the football-head to find those hard bottoms."

Pattern Notes

> Day 1: 5, 20-11
> Day 2: 5, 11-12 (10, 32-07)
> Day 3: 5, 13-10
> Day 4: 5, 14-13 (10, 28-07)

The water level was normal the first 2 days, and Martin caught key shallow fish on the Little John, including two big largemouths on day 1.

But after they dropped the lake the night of day 2, his shallow pattern fizzled.

In terms of his deep fish, it was a puzzle each day.

"The fish would be tight together, but so particular, as far as where they were sitting and what angle you had to throw at, and you had to be really ready to throw a marker," he noted. "You had to pay close attention to where you got your bites. If you drifted down 20 yards while unhooking a fish, you'd be off the school.

"Boat position was very important. I've got Garmin electronics. I've used a lot of brands of GPS over the years, and I've been around a lot of brands. I can definitely say the Garmin GPS is the most accurate one I've ever used. The reason Garmin is superior in my opinion is that, when you move your boat just a little bit, it adjusts your screen and boat position smoothly and quickly. With other units I've used in the past, they seem to stick and until you move your boat a lot, you won't know you've moved."

Photo: FLW Outdoors/Rob Newell Martin noted that the smallmouths may have been on a false spawn because of the full moon.

"I was throwing the crank up in 8 or 9 feet, then it would come off the break," he said. "On the first couple of days, the fish would bite it on top of the break. But as the tournament progressed, I started catching most of my fish out off the break a little bit. They were kind of suspended. On the last day, I caught five good fish off one spot in the last hour, and they were all suspended next to the break."

He also said his smallmouths were mixed in with largemouths, but he thinks he hooked the smallmouths because he was cranking a little faster than others he saw fishing.

"I wasn't targeting smallmouths, but I really think they were up there for either spawning or for a false spawn. I don't know, but they were up there shallow (on the ledges). A lot of the harder bottoms I targeted were shell, and there was a full moon. And I was fishing a medium to fast retrieve, and I think that triggers those smallmouths more than a slower retrieve."

Gear Notes

> Shallow gear: 6'9" medium-heavy Kistler Helium rod, Abu Garcia Revo casting reel, 12-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, Spro Little John crankbait (old glory and cellmate).

> Deep gear: 7'8" Kistler Magnesium TS All-Day Flippin'Pitchin' Stick, Abu Garcia Revo (6.3:1).

> He threw the Brian's Bees 18 in shad on 10-pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, and the Norman DD22 (also in shad) on 12- and 17- pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon. He threw the heavier line on a few of the ledges that had brush.

> He replaced the stock hooks on all his deep cranks with No. 2 Gamakatsu 2XStrong trebles so the big fish wouldn't straighten out his hooks, he said.

> "That All-Day (rod) has a pretty soft tip, and it was great to throw these big crankbaits on," he noted. "There were a lot of spectators watching and they were all freaking out at how far I could throw. In my opinion, it's the No. 1 cranking rod on the market."

> He also noted that he saw several competitors cranking chartreuse/blue, and threw it for a while, but with a shad pattern, he got significantly more bites and was able to catch fish behind boats throwing chartreuse/blue.

> Additionally, he caught one weigh-fish (a 3-pound smallmouth) the final day on a Berkley Power Shaky worm rigged on a Pro Model Buckeye Spot Remover jighead. He used the finesse rig to mop up in his cranking areas.

> The jig he used to find the hard-bottom areas was a 3/4-ounce All-Terrain Tackle Jim Moynagh's football-head jig.

The Bottom Line