Marty Sisk naturally got a big boost of confidence from his 6th-place finish in his first tour event – the FLW Series opener at Georgia's Lake Lanier

earlier this month. But what if he'd bombed? Would that have had a negative impact on his psyche?

Not at all, he said.

"I'm as confident now as I've ever been," said the 24-year-old from Evansville, Ind. "But even if I'd done bad, my confidence wouldn't have gone down any.

"I'm confident in what I do and the way I fish, and I know I can't catch them every time. If this one had turned out to be the opposite, I would've gone on to the next one with my head up."

Against His Nature

Sisk, who won the inaugural Skeeter BassFan Army Weekend Warrior Championship last summer at Eagle Mountain Lake in Texas, was forced to make a decision between several levels of water clarity at Lanier.

His first choice would have been to fish the murkier stuff, but there wasn't a lot of it and quite a few anglers were focused on it. There was a lot of clear water, but fishing in gin is probably his biggest weakness.

"What I ended up doing was splitting the difference," he said. "I found some water that was a little bit stained, where you could see down 4 to 5 feet, and I felt like I was right at home."

He used three baits – a Lucky Craft Pointer 100 DD (shad), a Bandit crankbait and a War Eagle spinnerbait (chartreuse/white with double willow-leaf blades). He weighed in at least 11-08 each day and made a big move with a 16-03 sack on day 3 that was fourth-best of the day.

His 53-02 total left him a little more than 3 pounds behind winner Tim Farley.

"I think (the finish) gained me some respect from the people who fish around home," he said. "Some might have thought it was luck, but my theory is that you make your own luck. I'm proud of what I did. I wish I would have won, but there's a lot of other people who finished behind me who wish they did too."

Pointer Led the Way

Sisk said approximately 75% of his fish at Lanier (keepers and throw-backs combined) were caught on the Pointer, with the rest divided about evenly beteween the crankbait and spinnerbait.

He focused on channel-swing banks composed primarily of rock or red clay. The fish were suspended in 12 to 20 feet of water.

"The key was to jerk the bait two or three times, then let it sit for about 10 seconds," he said. "Those fish were coming out of 20 feet of water and it's still pretty cold down there yet. When they took it, you could see the line jump on the water. They were definitely taking it on the pause."

Some of the top contenders got the majority of their bites at specific times of the day, but not him.

"They bit all day long," he said. "It wasn't like they were moving anywhere (later in the day). I think they were just staging there. They'd bite in the morning when I got there, and they'd still be biting when I'd leave."

What's Next?

Sisk's pro career is off to a strong start and he expects to do well at the next two events – at Kentucky's Lake Cumberland in early May and Tennessee's Old Hickory in late May-early June.

He's never fished Cumberland, but he likes what he's heard about it. "There should be pre-spawn and spawning fish, and most of them should be close to the bank," he said. "That might work in favor of a guy who's never been there before."

He likes his prospects at Old Hickory even better. "I've been there a few times, and it's a lot more my style. It''s a good power-fishing lake.

"The only one that bothers me is Smith Lake in Alabama. I've never fished there before and it's supposed to be super-clear."

Notable

> He's still employed as a carpenter, but rarely works in that trade these days. "My boss is an ex-fisherman, and he understands where I'm coming from."

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