Scott Martin Wins Okeechobee Eastern Stren Series

[TW_Staff]

Scott Martin has many years of experience fishing at Florida's Lake Okeechobee. After all, his father – the legendary Roland Martin – has owned a marina there since Scott was just a toddler.

It took him until last year, however, to learn the lesson that would key his victory in last week's Okeechobee Eastern FLW Series.

The 34-year-old Clewiston resident notched the most significant home-lake triumph of his career with a 20-pound sack on the final day that foiled John Cox's bid for a wire-to-wire win. He started that day facing a 10 1/2-pound deficit, but ended it with a 2-pound-plus margin over Cox, who was thwarted by the same conditions that had burned Martin in the past.

He finished with a 4-day total of 71-09 to gain his first Series win to go along with three FLW Tour victories.


When Martin checked the water level as the tournament approached, he liked what he saw.

"It was at the 13 1/2-foot mark, and that's the perfect level for throwing topwater swimbaits in the grass," he said. "I knew going in that they would be my primary weapons."

A full moon was approaching, and warmer weather over the previous couple of weeks on the heels of a severe cold snap meant that a big wave of spawners would head toward the banks. It was a combination that makes sight-fishing irresistible to many anglers, but he knew better than to toss all of his marbles into that jar.

"What happens is those fish aren't always catchable. I knew what I needed to do was keep casting and covering water. I'd still be bed-fishing, but I'd be making long casts to where I thought the bed was and to holes in the grass, anticipating them being there and trying to get them to react to the swimbait.

"Last year in the Stren I spent 4 hours one day trying to sight-fish for big females, and I was unsuccessful. What I should've been doing was casting and moving and grooving."

“One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned here after getting beat in the past is that sight-fishing will eventually burn you in multiple-day events on this lake,” Martin said.

Martin contends that sight-fishing is double trouble. For one, it’s way too easy to get bogged down on a big fish or two, wasting a day on fish that just burn up the clock and then leave.

“I made that mistake twice last year and swore I’d never do it again,” he explained.

"One good thing about the low water we had a few years ago was the outside grass lines were allowed to grow and they created buffer zones that protect certain areas from the wind. That's what really hurt John Cox ¬on the final day – that big wind out of the south muddied his water up.

"I spent a lot of time researching areas and I picked one that was about the size of four football fields, and it was protected. I never had mud – it was good, clean, clear water throughout the whole tournament."

And there was one other huge bonus about the area: No other competitor joined him there on any of the 4 competition days.



Competition:



Martin caught a 7 1/2-pounder on his fifth cast on day 1. "Right then I turned to my (co-angler) and said, 'I can win this tournament in this spot if I have it to myself.'''

He caught another one about 5 pounds, and then started mixing his long casts of the soft swimbaits with some medium-range pitches to holes in the grass – sometimes to fish he could see. He went through about 20 keepers to add a trio of 3-pounders to his two big ones and finished the day in 5th place.

Day 2 saw him catch another 7 right off the bat, but he also missed a few good bites that day that would've put his bag in the mid-20s. The bite was tougher all-around, though, and his haul of slightly less than 18 pounds moved him up to 2nd place.

Day 3 featured the toughest bite of the event, and again he missed several more good fish. He was forced to "sacrifice" some of the males on the beds just to surpass the 12-pound mark and he was extremely surprised when he didn't lose any ground in the standings.

He trailed Cox by more than 10 1/2 pounds when the final day got under way. "I told my father and some other people that I had a spot that was capable of producing a 30-pound bag and that if my water stayed clean and clear, I could make up that deficit," he said.

"It was the best day bite-wise and I could've ended up in the mid-30s – that one fish was between 9 and 10 pounds. I knew I had close to 20, but I thought I was throwing the tournament away because of lost fish.

"Normally when things like that happen, you don't win. I just feel tremendously blessed."



Winning Gear:



Swimbait gear: 7'6" extra-heavy Kistler Helium rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 65-pound Lake Fork Hybrid braided line, 7/0 Trokar offset hook, Lake Fork Live Magic Shad (watermelon-red/pearl or junebug), Reaction Innovations Trixie Shark (California 420 or junebug) or Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper (Houdini).

Pitching gear: 7' medium-heavy Kistler Magnesium Microguide rod, same reel, 20-pound Lake Fork FHP Parallelium FluoroHybrid line, 1/2-ounce unnamed tungsten weight, 3/0 Trokar hook, Lake Fork Baby Hyper Freak (junebug or white).



The Field:



John Cox:

It was rough day,” Cox said. “Everything went wrong. My best places were filled with muddy water, and the few bites I had in my back-up areas I missed. At the end of the day, I pulled into a little pond right here off the Kissimmee River and caught five squeakers just to have something to weigh in. It was just brutal.”

Cox said the biggest key to his success during the week was looking out deeper for bass and beds that others had missed.

Many of his fish came from beds in 4 to 5 feet of water that were just barely visible, even in the best of conditions. Many times Cox could not even see the bed; he would just spot the bass and carefully watch for where it set up to give away the bed’s location.

“Lake Okeechobee is really clear this year,” Cox said. “One of the places I fished was King’s Bar, and it looks just like Lake Toho in there, with deeper, open ponds. And the bigger females were set up on beds the same way they set up at Toho – out deep where you can barely see them.”

Cox’s key baits during the week included a Berkley Power Worm, a Power Bait Craw and a Power Bait Crazy Leg Chigger Craw.



Anthony Gagliardi:

Gagliardi devoted much of his week to sight-fishing close to the Kissimmee River area of Okeechobee.

His key baits included white plastic craws, soft jerkbaits and swimbaits.

“An important part of sight-fishing on Okeechobee is to move really slowly when looking for beds,” Gagliardi offered. “These fish can camouflage themselves in the grass so well you’ll never even know they’re there. So you have to kind of creep along in those grass flats and train your eye to detect any kind of movement in the water.


Todd Tucker:

Tucker fished on the North Shore for his better fish.

Interestingly, Tucker used a unique approach to find and catch untapped fish this week. Instead of fishing out in the eelgrass where others were fishing, Tucker used his big engine and push pole to force himself inside the reed line on the North Shore.

The biggest key was to find open, clean bottom back in those reeds. If it was clogged up with hydrilla and eelgrass behind the reeds, it was no good. But if it was a clean bottom with mussel shells, there would be beds back there.”

“I’ve learned in Florida that if you catch the male, the female will leave,” he explained. “Now it may be different in other parts of the country, where when you catch the male the female will set up on the bed after he is gone, but that’s not the case here.

in order to avoid catching the males, Tucker employed a large 8-inch swimbait to “tease the pair.”

“At first, the male would come after it, but they are usually so small they wear themselves out charging after it,” he described. “Pretty soon the female would get tired of the male not doing its job, and she would set up in the bed to defend it. That’s when I’d drop a tube or Brush Hog in there and catch her.”

Today, dark clouds put a damper on his sight-fishing game plan, and he moved out the outside of the eelgrass and targeted schooling bass under diving birds with a ¼-ounce Rat-L-Trap and a spinnerbait.



Tomm Mann Jr.:

his week Mann fished the Big Grassy and King’s Bar areas for his catches.

He alternated between blind-casting a 5-inch Yamamoto Senko (watermelon-red) on 17-pound Suffix fluorocarbon and sight-fishing a Yamamoto tube (camouflage) when he came across beds with better fish



TW Staff

[southernswimbait]

Yes, definitely congrats to Scott Martin for his win, on a damn swimbait no less! Scott has been as solid as anyone lately, and was glad to see him win on the Big O. He sure does a great job for himself; polished, professional and catches them good. He reminds me of that other National Guard guy, Brent Ehrler! The Guard Team is stacked with talent, literally.

Anyway, I finished 40th place and was tickled to death to do so. I made some good decisions in the tournament and abondoned most of my swimbait stuff because I wasn't on quality. When I moved to sight fish, my tournament took a turn for the better. The bed fishing was definitely on...clear, calm, full moon style conditions and the fish just kept moving up and in durring the first 3 days of the event. Okeechobee can be awfully fun to sight fish around. Bed fish in 1-2 feet of clear water are pretty fun to fish.

The below link is a little write up I did for Kaenon Polarized, has some decent pictures in it. The one fish went about 6 pounds and was the best fish I caught during the tournament. I hook and lost her once, and was able to come back 20 minutes later and get her to go again. White lizard is a "go-to" bed fishing bait for me on the Big O.

http://kaenon.com/blog/2010/02/sight-fishing-with-kaenon-polarized/