Scott Martin Wins FLW Lake Cumberland

Lake Cumberland presented the FLW Tour field with a lot of variables last week, but Scott Martin was determined to avoid running all over the massive Kentucky impoundment searching for solutions to a continually evolving puzzle. "I stayed within about a five-mile range," said the Floridian who extended his career record for Tour wins with his seventh triumph. "It had some creeks and pockets with a lot of variety - pea gravel, bluff walls and then trees and little brush piles all the way in the back. "I was able to fish for all three species without having to move around very much. I could start at the mouth and fish for smallmouth, then maybe pick up a couple of spots on the way in, and then the largemouth would be in the back. I'd just do it over and over again and run all new water every day." The tournament-best 19-07 stringer he caught on day 1 laid a strong foundation for the 60-01 total he compiled over four days that featured dramatically different weather conditions, which resulted in a highly inconsistent bite. His 13-12 stringer on day 4, which was the heaviest of any of the 10 competitors who made the final cut, left him with a 1-11 margin over runner-up Barry Wilson.

Martin opened practice exploring the mid-lake region and didn't encounter a great deal of success. Later that day he had a discussion with fellow pro Matt Arey, with whom he frequently shares information. Arey relayed that he'd gotten some quality jerkbait bites on the lower end. "I'd planned to look around down there anyways, but he really keyed me in on the jerkbait thing," Martin said. "We weren't fishing the same water for the most part, but when I got down there I eventually got into a rhythm with the jerkbait and got dialed into what I needed to look for. On the second day of practice I got several nice bites, and then the same thing again on the third day." He tried a jig on the third day and the Tour co-angler who was practicing with him threw dropshots and shaky-heads. The fish showed little enthusiasm for any of those offerings. "That told me that there wasn't much of a bite on the bottom. The lake was slowly rising every day and the water temperature was falling a little bit every day. When you have that situation, it's going to make the fish suspend, so I focused on that."

Competition:

Day 1 was beset by bitterly cold temperatures, powerful winds and driving rain, but it also presented the best conditions for catching smallmouths, which are the predominant tournament species at Cumberland. There's a big catch regarding the brown fish, though - the must measure at least 18 inches to be reduced to possession, and many that the anglers connected with were just shy of that standard. Martin caught four keeper bronzebacks that day, including a 5-pounder, and capped off his stringer with a solid largemouth to put a half-pound of distance between himself and the rest of the 164-angler field. He knew that such a performance would be tough to repeat, however, was set to gradually gravitate toward chamber-of-commerce status. He caught just 12 pounds on day 2 and dropped to 5th place, almost four pounds behind new leader Clark Wendlandt. He lost a couple of good bites and caught his only two keeper smallmouths toward the end of the day. He gained back three positions in the standings on day 3, when the wind died down considerably, with a 14-14 bag that was a strong haul for the day. Missed opportunities were an issue again and he went into the final day trailing Wendlandt by 3-11. Wendlandt did the other nine day-4 qualifiers a favor by failing to catch a keeper and Martin narrowly outdueled Wilson to capture the top prize. His sack included one big smallmouth, but it was a 3-pound largemouth that he caught on his final cast with the jerkbait to replace a dinky spotted bass that may have given him his winning margin. "One of the biggest things (on day 4) was my Garmin Panoptix," he said. "I used it to see two fish come out of a sunken tree and then go back in, so I started making a bunch of casts from different angles and a 3-pounder finally bit. "If I hadn't seen that, I'd have made one or two casts on each side of the tree and then moved on. Without that fish, I wouldn't have won for sure."

Winning Pattern:

The tournament required anglers to constantly adjust in order to achieve consistency, and Martin responded to that challenge. "When the fish changed, I changed with them," he said. "There'd be little shifts in their migration based on the weather and I noticed some things that allowed me to stay on them." He said the fish he caught were all pre-spawners. They were scattered at depths from 10 to 25 feet, with some of the largemouths shallower. The most productive range was 15 to 20 feet. He made long casts with a slow-sinking jerkbait. He'd count it down to about 10 feet and then execute slow pulls with long pauses in between. He usually prefers to throw a jerkbait on 10-pound fluorocarbon line, but opted for 12-pound P-Line Tactical fluorocarbon this time. "The No. 1 thing was being efficient and keeping my rhythm going," he said. "The 12-pound Tactical is a small, thin-diameter line, but it's strong. If the bait got hung up, I could just break off the branch or tear it out of a bush and cast right back to that same spot and possibly catch a fish." He spent a good portion of day 4 throwing an old Bomber Long A wakebait that he scrounged up on a whim because he thought it suited the day's serene conditions. It produced a few good bites, including a 3-pounder that he knocked off with the rim of his net while attempting to scoop it up. He caught a couple of fish on a 1/2-ounce M-Pack Flippin' Jig on day 1. "After that cold really set in, I couldn't get bit on the bottom anymore."

Winning Gear:

Jerkbait gear: 6'8" medium-action Okuma EVX rod, Okuma TCS casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 12-pound P-Line Tactical fluorocarbon line, unnamed jerkbait (transluscent shad).

Wakebait gear: 7' Okuma TCS Scott Martin signature series rod, same reel (8:1 ratio), 15-pound Okuma CXX monofilament line, Bomber Long A (bone).

Jig gear: 7'6" heavy-action Okuma TCS Scott Martin signature series rod, same reel (8:1), 20-pound P-Line Tactical fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce M-Pack Flippin' Jig (green-pumpkin), unnamed chunk trailer (green-pumpkin).

Main factor in his success: "I really consolidated the area I wanted to fish."

Performance edge: "The Garmin Panoptix was so crucial, especially on day 4 when the bait showed back up in the pockets. I was able to see the clouds of bait and I could throw right to where the clouds were and catch the fish. It also told me the position of the fish each day - I'd start on the points and work my way in and every day the fish moved. As soon as I could see activity on the Panoptix, I knew that was the zone I had to focus on."

Lake Cumberland Winning Pattern BassFan 4/11/17 (John Johnson)

Barry Wilson's runner-up finish was his best showing in 5 1/2 years as a Tour competitor (his previous high was a 4th at Beaver Lake in 2013). He pulled most of his weight from a pre-spawn staging area that attracted new fish as the event progressed, which made him at least somewhat of an exception to the rule regarding daily change-ups. He found the place on the afternoon of the first day of practice, when he hooked largemouths weighing 4 1/2 and 5 pounds. "Over the next two (practice) days I caught one keeper and three fish total, and I was fishing hard on the same kind of stuff," he said. "That place was all I had, really, so I just started learning it through the course of the day by spending time on it." The location was an inside bend on a creek with depths ranging from 4 to 14 feet, and the bottom was dotted with some type of green vegetation. Most of his action took place in the latter part of the day, after the water had warmed from 60 or 61 degrees in the morning to about 64. A squarebill crankbait produced most of his bites, with a ChatterBait playing a secondary role. "I knew I had to stay there and go for broke. I felt like it would replenish, which it did, but it got harder to catch them."

Cranking gear: 6'10" medium-heavy Lew's Custom Pro rod, Lew's Custom Pro casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 15-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, prototype Booyah squarebill crankbait (spring craw or shad).

Bladed jig gear: Same rod, reel and line, 1/2-ounce Z-Man ChatterBait (white), YUM Pulse swimbait trailer (white).

Main factor: "Finding that place was No. 1, and then staying there and learning it and having patience with it."

Performance edge: "With my Lowrance unit, I could use my sonar to see what looked like fish, and then check and see if they were bass with the DownScan. And I always have my HydroWave on when I'm fishing - I use the 'power pattern' with the volume low and I put it on a 15-second delay. I think that made a difference."

FLW Tour Lake Cumberland 2-5 Patterns BassFan 4/13/17 (John Johnson)

Terry Bolton has long been a tough competitor to beat in his state of residence, particularly on his home water of Kentucky Lake. He came to Cumberland with only a few previous visits on his ledger, but found a pattern that worked after a tip from fellow pro Dan Morehead. "I started out flipping a tube in practice and got seven bites on one stretch, and then Danny told me that they were biting a big spinnerbait," he said. "On the first day of the tournament I pulled up on the stretch where I'd had all the bites on the tube and started throwing the spinnerbait. "I had one fish when I started, and by the time I got to the end of the stretch I was culling." He focused on channel swings in the vicinity of the steepest banks leading back into pockets. He targeted mostly woody cover - bushes or laydown logs - and took 20 largemouths to the scale. "Some of them were around rock, but a lot of them were around wood," he said. "I'm sure some of them came off bushes that I couldn't see under the water. "It was pretty much of a slow-roll type of deal with the spinnerbait, I was trying to get it out there to the deeper stuff."

Spinnerbait gear: 6'10" medium-heavy Lew's Custom Lite rod, Lew's Custom Pro casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 20-pound Sufix monofilament line, 3/4-ounce Accent or War Eagle spinnerbait (chartreuse/white or white with silver and gold double willow-leaf blades).

Main factor in his success: "Danny told me they'd bite that spinnerbait and I had a good place to throw it."

Performance edge: "It was a combination of things, but that rod and real throws that bait so well and the feel is so good. I could cast that big bait and not have to worry about it backlashing."

FLW Tour Lake Cumberland 2-5 Patterns BassFan 4/13/17 (John Johnson)

Matt Reed, a longtime Bassmaster Elite Series competitor who's in his first year on the Tour, logged his second consecutive top-5 placement after beginning the season with two non-money finishes. He primarily threw a jerkbait that proved appealing to all three species - he weighed eight largemouths, seven smallmouths and five spots. "I was in a big creek that had a lot of secondary points and little pockets," he said. "The best points were the flatter ones - most of the lake is very steep. The fish could either be on the point or on the trees in the back of the pocket. "If they were in the pockets, they were suspended in the trees that had grown up when the lake was pulled down (for dam servicing)." He was constantly on the move to new locales with similar features. "I had to cover new water every day and I couldn't repeat anything," he said. "With a pattern like that, I knew I couldn't be the second man there that day - if there were boats there, I'd go somewhere else."

Jerkbait gear: 7' medium-action Temple Fork Outfitters rod, casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 10-pound fluorocarbon line, SPRO McStick 110 jerkbait (blue bandit).

Main factor: "The biggest thing was not going anyplace where I'd caught one before."

Performance edge: "That rod has a real fast tip, which allowed me to snap the jerkbait real hard. I had to snap slack into the line, I couldn't get lazy with it, but I'd have to make it pause between every move. They'd bite it on the hesitation."

FLW Tour Lake Cumberland 2-5 Patterns BassFan 4/13/17 (John Johnson)

Scott Canterbury developed two patterns in practice - throwing a jerkbait for smallmouths on main-lake points and flipping for largemouths in pockets and the point where the water started to take on a slight stain. The latter approach became more predominant as the tournament wore on. "It's been a weird year for me so far," he said. "I haven't really had consistent practices and I've had to scrap and scratch for whatever I could get. It worked out really good this time - I made good decisions and I had confidence in what I was doing." His flipping program was centered on rock transitions. He had no success on steep-walled places - he needed a more gradual slope with some trees or bushes. "I'm sure a lot of those fish were spawning and a lot were getting ready to," he said. "I could never go back through the same places and catch them again."

Flipping gear: 7'6" heavy-action Halo flipping rod, Ardent Apex Grand casting reel (7:1 ratio), 20- or 25-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 1/2- or 5/8-ounce Dirty Jigs Scott Canterbury Flippin' Jig (the go to), Netbait Paca Chunk Sr. and other various chunk trailers (green-pumpkin).

Jerkbait gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Halo Series II rod, same real, 10-pound P-Line tactical fluorocarbon, Megabass Vision Oneten+1 jerkbait (GP pro blue or pro blue skeleton).

Main factor in his success: "The biggest thing that paid off was having a backup plan."

Performance edge: "I've got good stuff all the way around and I've got confidence in everything I've got."

FLW Tour Lake Cumberland 2-5 Patterns BassFan 4/13/17 (John Johnson)