By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor



Roland Martin jokes that the key to winning an Angler of the Year (AOY) title has been a family secret for many years. It seems his son, Scott Martin, has finally cracked the code.

By finishing 6th at the Potomac River FLW Tour over the weekend, Scott Martin cemented his place among the greats in the sport as he clinched the FLW Tour AOY crown and the $100,000 payday that accompanies it. The four-time Tour winner and 2011 Forrest Wood Cup champion becomes the 14th different AOY in the 20-year history of the FLW Tour.

“It feels so great. It’s an amazing feeling,” said Martin, whose previous best AOY finish was 5th in 2006. “Saturday was the most stressed out I’ve ever been in a tournament. When I caught my second 4-pounder at around 12:30, I figured I’d clinched it and it felt like a 10,000-pound weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

“It’s amazing now that’s it over. I appreciate the title now more than ever because you don’t realize how hard it is and all the stress and the things that have to go right. It’s like talking to someone who doesn’t have kids who says they know what it’s like. No, they don’t.”

An AOY title was something Martin had badly wanted to add to his résumé even as he amassed other trophies and admittedly focused more on winning tournaments. His father, one of the sport’s pioneers and household names, won a record nine B.A.S.S. AOY titles between 1971 and 1985 and Scott was thrilled to have him along with his mom and wife on hand to witness his latest achievement.

“I have tears in my eyes right now,” Roland said Saturday morning while waiting to board a flight to Maryland to watch the day-3 weigh-in in person. “I can’t hardly wait. I’m extremely proud of him.”

Roland believes Scott’s AOY triumph might even be more impressive than any of his nine simply because of the depth and talent in the FLW Tour field.

“Fishing today is a lot more intense than when I was winning titles,” he said. “I was breaking new ground. He’s beating more competitors than I had to and it’s more of a challenge now than ever. It seems like the universe of fishermen is 100 times greater now.”

Martin joins David Dudley, Greg Hackney and Anthony Gagliardi as FLW Tour anglers who've won the Cup, AOY and a Tour event.

Emotional Roller Coaster

An informal poll posted on BassFan shortly after the Lake Chickamauga Tour event asked readers who they believed would win the AOY – Bryan Thrift, John Cox, Martin or another angler from the field. With just 11 percent of the nearly 500 votes going in his favor, Martin was viewed as a distinct underdog even though he’d won the most recent Tour event at the Potomac in 2012 and is at his best on shallow, grass fisheries.

“I definitely felt like an underdog and that things would have to go my way,” he said. “I’ve been doing this 15 years and seen some crazy things. Crazier things have happened and there was some pressure. Being in 3rd, I felt like the underdog, but I didn’t feel that pressure to catch them.”

When Thrift and Cox both came in with lighter-than-expected stringers on day 1 – Martin caught 13-11 – Martin started to sense that erasing the 31-point deficit to Thrift could be possible.

Both Thrift and Cox had better stringers on day 2, but not enough to offset the momentum Martin had started to build.

“My son Reed turned 15 on Friday and I told him I’d catch him a birthday bass,” Martin said. “I was running down the river with probably 11 1/2 pounds and I knew I needed to be in the 12s to stay ahead of those guys. I remember shaking off a fish on a swimjig in this off-the-wall creek so I ran in there around noon. I figured 10 boats had already fished there so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I put the trolling motor down and make a cast and catch a 3-plus pounder to get me to almost 13. Without that fish, I maybe don’t make the cut.”

He cited that moment as one that will standout from a season of high points, but there was still the matter of making it official on day 3. Entering the third day at the Potomac, Martin was in 11th and knew a finish of 19th or better would seal the AOY title. Thrift was no longer a contender after finishing 74th. It was down to Martin and Cox, who finished 42nd.



FLW
Photo: FLW

Roland Martin, right, helps Scott bag his fish on day 4 of the Potomac River FLW Tour.

“After day 2, everybody that came up to me said the exact same thing,” Martin said. “They’d say, ‘Dude, congrats, you got this. … Just don’t come in 20th.’ Everybody said that and after hearing about 50 of those, it started to wear on me. I went to bed hearing that and woke up hearing it.”

His first fish on day 3 was a 4-pounder that took a rough ride into the boat – he bounced it off the windshield – but it broke the ice and settled him down, but only slightly.

“Even with a 4, I needed a limit,” he said. “That was the reality. Every hour, it seemed like I’d catch one here and there and I had about 11 or 12 pounds when I made a move at 12:30.

“I pulled into this area where the grass was just below the water’s surface and I figured it’d be a good spot for a topwater. I tied on a walking bait and made a long cast. I started twitching it, but the hooks had gotten into the grass and it was not walking. I could tell there was a good clump of grass on it so I started snapping it to get the hooks free. I started reeling it back and twitching it and a 4 1/2 comes up and eats it. That was the moment I knew I had it.”

He was the final angler to weigh in on day 3 and when his AOY win became official, he was presented the trophy by Forrest L. Wood and joined on stage by his mom, dad and wife, all of whom had surprised him by traveling from Florida that morning.

“It’s different. Now I have an appreciation for this,” he said when asked to compare the AOY title to his other accomplishments. “It’s a dream for anyone who does this, but until you realize what has to happen for it to happen, it’s a whole different deal.”

He caught half of his fish last week on a Tightlines UV Hog, and also some on a UV Enko, Tightlines’ version of the Senko. A vibrating jig with a Bruiser Baits Crazy Craw trailer was also effective around grass and he also skipped an M-Pack Lures jig under docks on the final day.

“We had crazy weather from hot and calm to windy and raining,” he said. “It was different every day.”

Versatility a Key

For many years, Martin said his sole focus on the tournament trail was to fish for the win every time out. Sometimes, it worked out and he achieved that or put himself in contention. Other times, it backfired and he wound up near the bottom of the leaderboard.

He took a different tack this season.

“I’ve had a plan my whole career. My plan up until this year was to win tournaments,” he said. “I didn’t focus on AOY. I’d never approached any of the past seasons with AOY in my heart. We all want to win AOY at the start of the season, but it’s who believes it and digests it and focuses on it a special way – those are the guys who can do it. I just felt like this my was time.

“Up until this year, I said, ‘If I can’t win, what am I doing?’ I focused harder this year than I ever had.”

He recalled a trip to Rainy Lake in Minnesota where he was shooting an episode of his TV show last fall with some officials from FLW, including tournament director Bill Taylor. Over dinner one night, talk of the 2015 Tour schedule came up and Martin revealed his desire to target the AOY crown.

“I had a plan in October and it wasn’t just words,” he said. “It was actually a heartfelt focus.”

To achieve his goal, he needed his whole spectrum of skills, which he has expanded over the years to shed the label as being only a “shallow-water, grass guy.”

“I had to learn some different techniques over the last 5 years,” he said. “I’m not the best at any of them but I’m pretty good at all of them. I’m more well-rounded and can adjust better.”

Even Roland has taken notice of the effort Scott has put into being a more versatile angler.

“I always used to have 12 rods on my boat and he’s the same way, maybe more so,” Roland said. “He has complete command of a lot of techniques and he’s able to go from day to day and make adjustments.

“So many guys get locked into one or two patterns, but Scott is so good and when things aren’t working, he’s able to try something different.”

The one venue Martin figured he had to overcome was Smith Lake, known as a deep-water, brush-pile lake where spotted bass tend to dominate. This year, there were still fish in spawning mode and that played into Martin’s hands. He finished 5th there to trigger a string of Top-20 finishes – 16th at Beaver Lake, 11th at Lake Eufaula, 15th at Lake Chickamauga – that culminated with another Top-10 at the Potomac.

“I knew Smith would be the one I needed to focus on,” he said. “That was the tournament that won it for me. Without that finish, we’re not having this conversation.”

Group Effort

Martin was quick to credit his family and sponsors for the support he’s received not just this season, but throughout his career.

Randy Clark is a longtime friend of Martin’s and traveled with him for 10 years and Martin said some advice Clark gave him a while back resonated with him all season.

“He’s been a big part of my success,” Martin said. “One thing he’s always told me and I always remember is, ‘If you believe it, you can achieve it. If you doubt it, do without it.’ I really think there’s a mindset when you perform at a high level and it’s not accidental. You truly have to have the right mindset.”

Asked what’s left to accomplish now that he’s added an AOY trophy to his mantle, Martin said he’d like to be the first to win two Forrest Wood Cups. He’ll get that opportunity in August when the Cup returns to Lake Ouachita, site of his Cup victory 4 years ago.

“That would be amazing and that’s the next goal,” he said. “Multiple AOYs would be awesome, too, but what’s scary about that is after I caught that 4-pounder on Saturday I sat there for a minute and I thought that being the most level-9 stress I’d ever experienced in my life. I’ve only won it once and to think my dad was in that situation nine times and pulled it off. It gave me a whole new appreciation for what he did.”