Martin comes up short
When
day-three leader Art Ferguson left the door open with a paltry 7-pound, 11-ounce
catch today, Dudley was not the only one who took advantage of it.
National Guard pro Scott Martin of Clewiston, Fla., also crossed Ferguson’s
threshold with a 14-pound, 13-ounce catch today to take the runner-up position
with a two-day total of 28 pounds, 7 ounces worth $50,000.
Martin began his week shallow, fishing a Spro Little John crankbait around
seawalls where he could see shad activity.
But as the water dropped on day two, Martin’s shallow-water program began to
wane and he became much more reliant on deep shell mounds on river ledges in
Fort Loudoun.
He caught his deepwater fish on two deep-running crankbaits, including a DD-22
and a Brian’s Bees B-18, but he actually found the areas with a football head
jig.
“In practice, I kept a heavy football head jig rigged up so I could feel the
bottom,” he said. “If the bottom was soft and mushy, I’d move on. But whenever I
felt that rubble shelly bottom, I marked it.”
Martin also believes the color and cadence of his deep crankbaits over the
shells were key. The shell mounds were 8 to 10 feet and top and he would dredge
the bait into the shells hard and fast.
“I normally use chartreuse-blue-back patterns for crankbaits on TVA lakes, but
the shad-colored patterns seemed to work much better this week,” Martin said.
“Also, I was really cranking the bait fast and making it real erratic, which is
one reason I think I caught so many smallmouth on it.”
“I know this sounds crazy,” he added. “But I really believe
those smallmouth were spawning on the shell bars in about 8 feet
of water. It seemed like the closer the full moon got during
practice, the more smallmouth I started catching off those
bars."
Cherry fifth
Hank
Cherry of Maiden, N.C., ended the event on a strong note with a 13-pound,
13-ounce stringer to bump him to fifth place with a two-day total of 21 pounds,
10 ounces worth $20,000.
Cherry spent the week fishing shallow on flat banks and docks and credited boat
traffic with helping his bite today.
“I’ve pretty much done the same thing all week: swim a ˝-ounce white Dump Truck
jig around docks and shallow banks,” he said. “Today, when those big cruiser
boats started running up and down the lake, it produced a mud line that was even
with the ends of the docks and that seemed to help the fish position right where
I could target them best.”
“Yesterday, the water was actually a little too clear,” he added. “But with all
the big boats and water skiers today, it muddied the banks up pretty good and
made the fishing much better.”