Martens Quickly Got His Bearings In the Desert

By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Six years is a long time for an angler the caliber of Aaron Martens to go without a Bassmaster Elite Series victory. He had to return to a place that held many good memories from an earlier period in his life to end that dry spell.

Martens, who grew up in Southern California, spent a considerable amount of time at Lake Havasu during his late teens and early 20s. There are more and bigger bass there now than there was two decades ago, but he discovered last week that the scenic water-storage impoundment on the Arizona-California border still fishes much like it did so long ago.

He topped his runner-up finish at the Sacramento River the previous week by winning at Havasu on the circuit's inaugural visit to that venue. His bags got progressively bigger as the event wore on and culminated in a massive 19-05 haul on the final day as he rallied from 4th place to collect his long-awaited third Elite trophy.

He edged another desert-lake powerhouse – Arizona's Cliff Pirch – by 2 pounds to claim the title. Both are three-time winners of the WON Bass U.S. Open that's contested annually at Lake Mead on the same Colorado River system.

His 68-09 total worked out to an average of a little more than 17 pounds per day. The $100,000 top prize pushed his career B.A.S.S. earnings total to more than $2.4 million – quite impressive considering he's never garnered the huge payday that accompanies a Bassmaster Classic victory.

Following are some of the specifics.

Practice

Martens got a look at Havasu for the first time in the better part of a decade in January, when he came out from his home in Alabama to spend a few days fishing the lake with longtime friend and top-flight Western competitor Justin Kerr. Perhaps 7 years prior to that, he'd visited for a day en route to a U.S. Open, but didn't fish.

The 42-year-old recalls winning a few tournaments there half a lifetime ago, but doesn't remember which circuits they were on or whether they were championship-type events.

"I didn't have any waypoints – I started with a clean slate on that place," he said. "It all came back to me pretty quick. One of the important things I remembered is you have to do a lot of thinking at Havasu and make sure you're doing the right thing. There's not a lot of room for error.

"I did a lot of graphing and realized it's still the same old Havasu, so that trip really helped me a lot."

The official practice period was shortened from 3 days to 2 in order to prevent putting the top finishers at Sacramento at a disadvantage (Martens, of course, was one of those). He spent much of the first day reorganizing tackle, then spent some of his remaining time looking for bed-fish.

He located and marked well over two dozen active spawners. When he wasn't scanning for beds, he had a fairly easy time getting bites around the man-made habitat structures that are spread throughout the lake, but it seemed like the majority of the field was keying on those.

After seeing all the pressure on the habitats, he determined that his main focus would be on tules – some in pockets off the main body of the lake and others located up the river.

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 15-04
> Day 2: 5, 16-06
> Day 3: 5, 17-10
> Day 4: 5, 19-05
> Total = 20, 68-09

Martens was tied for 33rd place after day 1 with his lightest bag of the event. At his second stop he came across Edwin Evers (the eventual 3rd-place finisher who weighed a tournament-best 20-07 on opening day) and recognized instantly that Evers had deciphered the flipping bite in that area.

Still, Martens managed to catch a 4-pounder and a 3 to go with three bed-fish to lay a decent foundation for himself.

His day-2 weight was up by more than a pound and he climbed to 11th place, but he described that day as his toughest of the derby. He said he lost about 80 percent of his flipping bites until he switched to a larger, heavier hook. Fortunately, he'd pulled a 4 1/2-pounder and a 3 from the beds.

He used a dropshot rig and a spinnerbait to pick up a few decent fish early on day 3. When he moved to the tules (the flipping action didn't get good until the middle of the day), he added a 4-pounder and a pair that exceeded 3 to climb to 4th place.

The morning of day 4 was slow for him and he was forced to start flipping earlier than he'd planned. He missed his first take, but took that as an encouraging sign that the reed fish would indeed bite that day.

He'd saved a couple of areas so he could hit them hard on the final day, and that's where he go into the big ones that were feeding on blackbird in the tules.

"I knew if I could get five bites there and land them all, I'd have 18 to 19 pounds," he said. "Besides the ones I caught, I set the hook on three other ones and missed them, and I had four or five more just pick up the bait and drop it."

He said he's been wise to the blackbird phenomenon for more than 20 years and knew it was occurring when he found feathers in his livewell after day 3.

"I've had bass spit up adult blackbirds in the livewell before," he said. "I've seen fish go after the birds and I've heard it lots of times. It's something that's normal at this time of year.

"There's places where the tules are matted up and folded over and it's real thick. The birds are nesting in there and the bass eat them."

Winning Gear Notes

> Flipping gear: 7'8" heavy-action or 7'6" extra-heavy Enigma Fishing rod, Shimano Metanium casting reel (8.5:1 gear ratio), 30-pound Sunline SX1 braided line, unnamed 1/2- or 3/4-ounce weight, 4/0 Gamakatsu Heavy Cover hook, Strike King Rage Craw or Zoom Speed Craw (green-pumpkin).

> He used the heavier rod and weight and the Speed Craw to penetrate the thickest vegetation. "The flappers on the Rage Craw were too big for that and they were grabbing onto stuff," he said. "A lot of that stuff was hard to get through."

> Dropshot gear: 6'11" Enigma Fishing spinning rod, Shimano Stella 2500 spinning reel, 10-pound Sunline SX1 braid with 8-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon leader, 1/8- or 1/4-ounce River2Sea cylinder dropshot weight, No. 1 or 1/0 Gamakatsu Finesse Heavy Cover hook, 6" Roboworm Straight Tail worm (Aaron's magic or MM3).

> He used a dropshot rig for bed-fishing, but wasn't ready to reveal the bait. "I want to keep it a secret for now and maybe catch some more fish on it," he said.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "Those blackbirds saved my butt. They're what I was keying on the last day."

> Performance edge – "I visibly saw most of the fish I fished for, even the ones that weren't on beds, so I'd say my Solar Bat signature series sunglasses with the blue-mirror lenses. I used my eyes a lot both at Havasu and the Delta."

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