Jason Abram's Wins TW FLW Lake Martin

One big bite - that's all that separated the entire top 10 going into the final day on Lake Martin. Whoever got it was probably going to win. Turns out, one big bite is all Jason Abram got in five hours of fishing his main pattern today, but that one big bite anchored a bag just big enough to earn his first Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit event. Abram's day three story

Complete results

"This is a childhood dream," says Abram, who weighed in 11 pounds, 3 ounces today to get to 52-9 total for the event. "I can't even tell you É It just feels so great; so great!" Of course, Abram wasn't feeling so great prior to the final read out. As mentioned, Abram had spent five hours fishing his main pattern with just one bite to show for it, and that bite came at around 10:30 a.m. From then on, it was hours of "mentally exhausting" fishing and wondering if he'd left the door open for someone to catch him.

Yet, the reason he kept fishing his pattern was the same reason he'd be fishing it all week - it didn't get many bites, but it got the right bites. In this case, a 4-pounder that couldn't resist his merthiolate Reaction Innovations Flirt Worm walked under docks - but not just any docks. "It had to be the last three docks in a pocket," says the Piney Flats, Tenn., pro. "I was looking for flatter pockets with three docks lined up in the back. I could look on my graphs and quickly see which pockets looked good, which helped me fish fast, and I needed to. I caught one fish for every 15 pockets I hit." Thanks to the unique format of the event being moved up due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, Abram and the rest of the field went straight from practicing to competition with no off day. That helped Abram, who had just started figuring out in practice the big, prespawn female largemouths were hanging underneath the last docks in a pocket warming themselves before making the final move to spawn.

So when the sun came out the first two days, Abram was able to quickly capitalize, skipping his worm - which he threw on a G. Loomis 6-foot, 8-inch medium-heavy spinning rod - as far underneath the docks as possible and walking it out. Though, he says, he usually didn't need to walk it far, as the fish were up so shallow that they often bit right away. Yet, after taking over the lead on day two thanks to the largest bag of the tournament - 17-10 - the conditions began to unravel quickly. Clouds and falling water made it so fish couldn't get comfortable sitting up in inches of water under docks, which in turn, made Abram uncomfortable about continuing to devote so much time to the pattern. But that's where the other half of his pattern came into play. Abram spent roughly the first few hours of every day targeting spotted bass to catch a limit and calm him down. He focused his efforts in the mid-lake region, right around where the dirty and clear water met. "I was paralleling just random banks with a Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper," he says. "I think the spots were just pushing bait up against the bank, because I'd go awhile with nothing and then catch three or four quick. It's like a pod swam up and I'd catch them."

That pattern held true again today, though, two of his spotted bass were pretty tiny. So when he made the change to go target largemouths, he did so with the mindset of just getting two bites. The first came quickly, and was actually a 4-pound spotted bass. Still, it had him confident that he could get at least one more in the remaining few hours. Turns out, that never happened, though he says he had two 4-pounders chase his worm out from under a dock and either roll on it and miss or see the boat and spook. Still, in the end, he didn't need either. His floating worm pattern held up just enough with that one big bite to seal the deal and make his dream a reality, along with pocketing $100,000. "I'd been so close to winning before and always came up short," says Abram. "I thought I didn't close it out again today. But I stuck to what I thought I could win this thing on, and I was rewarded."

FLW Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Lake Martin Winning Patterns - FLW 3/21/20 (Jason Abram)

To win a major event, everything usually has to line up just right. Unfortunately, that definitely didn't happen for Ron Nelson. In fact, with everything that went wrong, it's pretty remarkable he was able to come so close to winning in the first place. "I had a lot of flaws and mistakes this week," says Nelson, who leads Angler of the Year race. "This tournament was painful every day."

Nelson originally planned on targeting offshore spotted bass coming into the event, but when he started seeing 6- and 7-pound largemouths on beds, he easily pivoted to them to start. Unfortunately, things started going wrong almost immediately. "I caught two 7-pounders in practice," says Nelson. "So I knew where some big ones were, and I had a big, big one marked. I went to her first thing, and she had a 2-pound buck with her [on day one]. Well, I was so far off her, that I couldn't really see. I just thought the buck kept eating it, and I didn't want to catch him.

"So I got in closer, and then I see the big, big was gone, but a 5-pounder had replaced her, and that's what was biting. Well, when she saw me she left. So I let it sit hoping she'd come back, and when I checked again, the big, big was there again. But she would keep swimming off." That's how his tournament went, with him losing 3-5-pound class fish every day in some pretty unique ways, too. In fact, by the final day, he was so paranoid of losing fish he had a 4-pounder he watched eat his Keitech Swing Impact FAT four times before setting the hook, because she was facing him every time she ate.

A big key for him on that swimbait - which he used both for blind casting and sight-fishing - was using both weedless and regular 1/4-ounce heads. With the water dropping so much during the event, the fish up shallow got extra spooky. So he used the weedless head so he could cast his swimbait up on shore and quietly bring it into the water without making a splash. Despite everything, Nelson actually had one last shot at the win Saturday, when he found a 4-pounder locked on a bed late in the day that actually bit twice but he didn't pin. Unfortunately, he was worried about being late to check-in and left her, only to arrive with 5 minutes to spare. "Who knows what would've happened if I spent 5 more minutes on her," says Nelson.

FLW Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Lake Martin 2-5 Patterns - FLW 3/24/20 (Matt Becker)

Targeting spotted bass usually means focusing on schools of fish. Not for Spencer Shuffield. "I was just searching around with my Garmin Panoptix LiveScope for single fish swimming around suspended," says Shuffield. "Then when I saw one, I'd pitch out a drop-shot with a Zoom Super Fluke Jr. (disco green) and catch him."

Fishing on the lower end, Shuffield hit dozens of spots, all with drains leading into spawning pockets. Once in one, he'd just wander around watching his screen to see if something came into the cone, which he notes took a lot of practice to get the right distance. Still, that practice paid off, as he complained he could barely hold fish by the end of the tournament because his thumbs were so raw.

Unfortunately, while he could see the bigger fish early on in the event, as the tournament wore on the fish tended to group up more and hang tighter to the bottom, making it harder for him to identify key fish to catch. He even caught a few blind casting his drop-shot around, which he threw on Yo-Zuri Top Knot fluorocarbon. "The postspawn fish started cycling out and joining those loners," says Shuffield. "When they got tight to the bottom I just couldn't see them anymore. So I had to catch a lot of pound-and-a-halfers to weed through and catch a good one."

FLW Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Lake Martin 2-5 Patterns - FLW 3/24/20 (Matt Becker)

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, and Matt Becker considered himself quite lucky this event. Originally, Becker focused solely on sight-fishing on the lower end, stumbling upon one pocket with multiple good fish on beds and a handful more cruising around.

Yet, once that spot began dwindling due to falling water levels - in fact, he actually saw fish's backs out of the water while sight-fishing for them - Becker began running docks, which resulted in this lucky and epic fish catch. Becker thanked his 20-pound test Seaguar Smackdown braid to 10-pound test Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon for that catch, which came via a wacky-rigged Yamamoto Senko (watermelon red) on a No. 2 Trokar weedless hook. He used a 5-inch Senko for docks and a 4-inch version for sight-fishing, with both being thrown on a Favorite Hex spinning rod. Because his fish were so finicky, he also cycled through shaky heads, drop-shots, tubes and more to get bites.

FLW Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Lake Martin 2-5 Patterns - FLW 3/24/20 (Matt Becker)

Nelson may be leading Angler of the Year, but Strickland is on quite a roll now, too. Having just won the previous Pro Circuit event on the Harris Chain, Strickland kept his good mojo going thanks to sticking to his wheelhouse Ð burning the bank. Originally, he capitalized on largemouth with a buzzbait, but eventually he had to shift gears.

ÒThe largemouth donÕt reload on that lake like others,Ó says Strickland. ÒSo, honestly, I probably ran out of fish.Ó When that happened, he switched up to a Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper (sexy shad) and Reaction Innovations Pocket Rocket (green pumpkin) thrown on a 7-foot, 6-inch Fitzgerald All Purpose rod to survive into the top 10.

FLW Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Lake Martin 2-5 Patterns - FLW 3/24/20 (Matt Becker)