A collection of anglers speculate about what it will take to advance at the Wal-Mart FLW Tour event on Lake Martin
ALEXANDER CITY, Ala. – Lake Martin will be a welcome relief to the 350 anglers in this week’s FLW Tour tournament.
“Not only can you catch a fish, but you actually feel like you’re around fish all over the lake,” said Jerry Williams of Conway, Ark. “That’s a big change from the Pascagoula River. Now all that remains is to see if I can catch them.”
Williams, one of the 175 professionals in the field, is struggling with catching fish on Lake Martin. But like many of the pros, he would rather be struggling on a body of water that has fish, than one that doesn’t. That mindset has most of the field looking forward to the start of this event. And like most tournaments, there are those who are catching fish and those who aren’t.
To get an idea of how the tournament might play out, Outdoor News Wire spent an hour at the Wind Creek State Park ramp on Lake Martin, asking every angler coming or going how they thought the tournament would go.
Jimmy Milsap, Cant, Ga., angler
Milsap is an odds-on favorite for this event. Not only does he live relatively close to Lake Martin, he won a recent B.A.S.S. tournament here. He said he understands the lake and feels like he won’t have any problems catching fish, but as far as matching his performance from the B.A.S.S. event he’s not so sure.
“There is 12 more feet of water out there now than there was now,” Milsap said. “And the water is stained. It’s not the same lake.”
But Milsap said he has had a good practice, catching several fish, including the much sought-after largemouth bass.
“I think the fishing will be good,” he said. “A lot of people should catch fish, and there will be a bunch of limits.’
“The largemouth seem to be biting so that should drive up the weights. I’ve caught a lot in the 2 1/2- to 3-pound range.”
Milsap believes a 12- to 14-pound daily weight should make the top 10. The reason he believes that is the fish that have pulled up shallow all seem to be quality fish.
“Usually there are tons of small spots everywhere,” Milsap said. “But they’ve pulled back and the fish that are shallow seem to be the good ones.”
Although some anglers are hoping that conditions will change, Milsap doesn’t think they will change in time to make a difference. “If it hasn’t changed by now, it’s not going to change,” he said.
Jeff Carrecker, Stockbridge, Ga., co-angler
Carrecker has spent five days practicing on the lake, and readily admits that it has been less than stellar.
On Monday heavy rains passed through the area, further muddying up the water and drenching the anglers in the mid-40-degree temperatures.
To make matters worse, Carrecker, already soaked from the rain, had to jump out of his boat into the water to retrieve a lost rod. The rod flew from his wet hands when he set the hook, and he said he wasn’t ready to lose it or the fish on the other end.
“Other than that it’s been a little slow,” Carrecker said. “The fish you catch seem to be decent fish. I know I haven’t caught any small ones. So, I think the weights in this tournament should be pretty good. I don’t know that I can do any good. But by tournament day, these guys will put things together and there will be a lot of fish caught.”
He expects the weight for the top-10 cut to be around 24 or 25 pounds.
“The fish are in a pre-spawn mode so it should be pretty good,” he said. “I just haven’t caught enough to know.”
Robin Cummings, Cullman, Ala., pro
Cummings fishes Lake Martin on a regular basis, and expected to be fishing for spawning bass for this tournament, but the change in the weather and rise in lake levels changed that.
“The largemouth were biting pretty good shallow, but the cooler water shut that down,” Cummings said. “The rise in the water seemed to move every thing around.”
Still, Cummings has had a good practice, catching a limit of keepers on every day. But he said many of those limits have been on the small side.
“Prior to the cold snap, I thought it would take about 22- to 24-pounds to make the cut,” he said. “But if the largemouth don’t bite, it will be less than that. Maybe close to the 16-pound mark. Hopefully the water will warm up just a bit. If we could just get two days of sunshine, this place will go crazy.”
Mark Meyer, Cullman, Ala., co-angler
Meyer is fishing his third event as a co-angler on the FLW Tour. To date he is fifth in the overall standings with a 15th- and 30th-place finish at Lake Okeechobee and the Pascagoula River, respectively. He hopes to fare even better on this lake.
Meyer has competed on the lake several times, finishing second in a Red Man tournament last season.
“Before it turned cold, I figured it would take a big string,” Meyer said. “They were really pulled up shallow a couple of days ago. Now I don’t know where they went.”
Meyer expects that 12 to 13 pounds will make the cut in the Co-Angler Division.
“I believe the largemouth are going to be hard to catch,” he said. “That will drive the weights down. And I expect Wednesday will be a pretty tough day. But they might bite by Thursday.”
Steve Westfall, Columbia, Tenn., co-angler
Westfall is one of the many anglers hoping to rebound from the dismal conditions at the Pascagoula River, but he says the fishing has been tough on him.
“Right now the water is pretty muddied up and the weather has been rough,” he said. “I’m catching a few fish, but not many.”
So few, Westfall believes the co-angler cut could come in around 8 pounds.
“I think it will be tough on the guys in the back of the boat,” he said.
As for the professionals, he believes they will have to catch largemouth bass if they expect to win.
“There will be a lot of spots caught, but they will be small,” he said.
Jim Nolan, Bull Shoals, Ark., angler
Nolan is a specialist on large impoundments, and usually fairs well when bass hit Carolina-rigged lures.
That figures to be a major pattern for catching fish in this event, but Nolan said the fish are doing some weird things,
“They came with the warm weather, but they pulled back when things got cold,” Nolan said. “But they didn’t pull all the way back. They are suspending in shallow water and they are real hard to catch. It’s a problem for us, trying to figure out how to catch them.”
Nolan said he expects the top-10 cut to be around 14 or 15 pounds.
“I’ve caught eight or nine keepers a day, and the best I could’ve weighed is 9 pounds,” he said. “I think fish will be caught, but because they are situated in that suspended area, it’s going to be hard to count on places to catch big weights.”
Nolan said the water needs to warm and hopes the next few days of promised clear days will move lots of fish shallow.
Dick Bowman, Thornville, Ohio, co-angler
Bowman is a retired football teacher and basketball coach who says it would be easier to figure out the NCAA bracket than make a guess at the outcome of this event.
“A lot of folks are catching a lot of fish,” he said. “But I can’t say that I can catch them.”
Bowman said he’s been catching fish everyday, having his best practice day on Wednesday. But he’s found the fish to be scattered.
“Maybe I’m not fishing for them deep enough,” he said.
Leaving plenty of wiggle room, Bowman feels the weight for the 10-man cut will fall somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds.
“I think there will be a lot of fish caught, I just don’t know how many of them will be big fish,” he said. “Because of that, there will be a lot of people bunched up in the standings with close weights.”
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