Scott Martin Earns Record Eighth Tour Win, Pockets $125,000
Pro Scott Martin of Clewiston, Florida, brought a five-bass limit to the scale Sunday weighing 13 pounds , 12 ounces, to win the FLW Tour at Lake Cumberland presented by T-H Marine. Martin’s four-day total of 20 bass weighing 60 pounds, 1 ounce, gave him a 1-pound, 11-ounce edge over second-place pro Barry Wilson of Birmingham, Alabama, and earned him $125,400 in the internationally-televised tournament that featured 164 of the world’s best bass anglers. With his victory, Martin also became the first angler in FLW history to win eight Tour-level events.
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“It feels great to win another tournament – it’s awesome,” said Martin, the 2015 FLW Angler of the Year and 2011 Forrest Wood Cup Champion. “I always try to go out there and be as good as I can be. I’m very blessed.”
Martin’s primary areas this week were on the lower end of the lake, near the dam. He said he preferred locations that had a good population of spotted, smallmouth and largemouth bass, and that he ran to new water each day of the tournament.
“My fish had to be in a creek. Not a main pocket off of the river, but a creek with small arms,” said Martin. “The creeks I liked had lots of little arms. At the intersections there were points, then a straight stretch that led back to pockets with bushes. The largemouth used the bushes in the back of the drain, while the spotted bass keyed in on the bushes along the stretches. The smallmouth liked the secondary points with rock and bushes near the intersection openings.”
Martin caught fish early on in the week with an M-Pack Lures Flippin’ Jig, but did the bulk of his damage with a translucent-shad-colored jerkbait. On the final day of competition, Martin rotated in a Bomber Lures Long A wake bait, which turned out to be a crucial adjustment.
“I caught two that I weighed in today on the wake bait,” said Martin. “It just felt right to throw it. Today the water temperature was rising a little bit, I saw some baitfish activity and it was dead-slick calm. Those are the best conditions to use it in.”
Martin wound up bringing two spotted, two largemouth and a smallmouth bass to the weigh-in stage Sunday. He said his win was secured by a largemouth that weighed nearly 3 pounds that he caught on his final cast of the day.
The top 10 pros finished the event on Lake Cumberland:
1st: Scott Martin, Clewiston, Fla., 20 bass, 60-1, $125,000
2nd: Barry Wilson, Birmingham, Ala., 20 bass, 58-6, $30,000
3rd: Terry Bolton, Paducah, Ky., 20 bass, 57-5, $25,000
4th: Matt Reed, Madisonville, Texas, 20 bass, 55-15, $20,000
5th: Quaker State pro Scott Canterbury, Springville, Ala., 20 bass, 55-7, $19,000
6th: Chris McCall, Palmer, Texas, 20 bass, 53-10, $18,000
7th: Cody Meyer, Auburn, Calif., 20 bass, 53-8, $17,000
8th: Casey Scanlon, Lenexa, Kan., 19 bass, 51-11, $16,500
9th: Clark Wendlandt, Leander, Texas, 15 bass, 50-0, $15,000
10th: Anthony Gagliardi, Prosperity, S.C., 19 bass, 48-14, $14,000
Overall there were 43 bass weighing 98 pounds, 5 ounces, caught by nine pros Sunday. The catch included seven five-bass limits.
Jeff Clark of Fort Smith, Arkansas, won the Co-angler Division and $20,100 Friday with a two-day total of eight bass weighing 20 pounds, 1 ounce, followed by Frank Divis Sr. of Farmington, Arkansas, who finished in second place with six bass weighing 19 pounds, 8 ounces, worth $7,550.
In FLW Tour competition, pros and co-anglers are randomly paired each day, with pros supplying the boat, controlling boat movement and competing against other pros. Co-anglers fish from the back deck against other co-anglers. The full field competes in the two-day opening round. Co-angler competition concludes following Friday’s weigh-in, while the top 20 pros based on their two-day accumulated weight advance to Saturday. Only the top 10 pros continue competition Sunday, with the winner determined by the heaviest accumulated weight from the four days of competition.
Throughout the season, anglers are also vying for valuable points in hopes of qualifying for the 2017 Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of professional bass fishing. The 2017 Forrest Wood Cup will be on Lake Murray in Columbia, South Carolina, Aug. 11-13.
The FLW Tour at Lake Cumberland presented by T-H Marine was hosted by the Somerset Tourist and Convention Commission. The next event for FLW Tour anglers will be the FLW Tour at Beaver Lake presented by General Tire, April 27-30 in Rogers, Arkansas.
Television coverage of the FLW Tour at Lake Cumberland presented by T-H Marine will premiere in high-definition (HD) on NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) May 24 from 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. EDT. The Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show airs on NBCSN, the Pursuit Channel and the World Fishing Network and is broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoors-sports television show in the world.
About FLW
FLW is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money in 2017 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW conducts more than 274 bass-fishing tournaments annually across the United States and sanctions tournaments in Canada, China, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show, broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, while FLW Bass Fishing magazine delivers cutting-edge tips from top pros.
By: Brian Johnson, FLW
