Lee and Martens Advance to Knockout Round, Elias First Man Out
EUFAULA, Ala. – The first day of drama drama in the new season of the Bass Pro Tour. Three anglers found themselves on or near the Elimination Line after Qualifying Day 3 on Lake Eufaula: Jordan Lee (19th place) and Aaron Martens (20th place) were the last two anglers to make it through to the Knockout Round, while Paul Elias just missed out by 3 pounds, 7 ounces.
Little Bit of Luck for Lee
Lee began the day in 12th place after catching 13-15 on Qualifying Day 1 but had trouble locating fish on this sunny Sunday. The Alabama pro only found two fish all day—a 4-11 and a 3-0—after trying multiple techniques, areas and baits.
“Some guys had it figured out better than I did, but today was about covering water for me,” Lee said. “I got a few lucky bites today including that 4-11 towards the middle of the day. I ran 20 minutes into a pocket that had a big, concrete boat ramp. I threw my spinnerbait at the ramp and caught it on my second cast. That was the only good move I made all day.”
Lee’s lucky spinnerbait turned out to be a double Colorado-bladed in chartreuse. Although luck was on his side today, the 2019 Stage One champion isn’t going to rely on good fortune come Knockout Round time. After spending most of his day on the south end and middle of Lake Eufaula, Lee thinks a change in location may be in order come Tuesday morning.
“I think I’m going to head up the river,” Lee strategized. “I haven’t been up that way all week, but I’ve had some success up that way in the past. I hope the bite is better, but the water is just so muddy in so many places. If this water clears up just a hair by Tuesday, I really think we’ll see a lot more bites.”
Martens Moving On
While Lee seemed to be in good spirits after his round, it was the opposite for Aaron Martens. Martens began his day with quality bites landing a 3-11 at the end of Period 1 and a 2-6 at the beginning of Period 2. Martens added a 3-8 later in Period 2 for his final fish of the day, bringing his total weight to 21-1. For the first time in this early season, frustration set in for Martens.
“I’m disgusted by the water color, honestly,” Martens said as he pulled his Phoenix boat out of the brown, murky water. “Even down lake it was really dirty, which I had never seen before. I made a stupid move today to try and find some clear water, and I failed in my search.”
Martens caught all of his fish while pitching and flipping a jig around shallow, flooded timber. While the water color and clarity wasn’t ideal, you just saw that Martens wasn’t putting the struggles of his day entirely on the water. The California pro also blamed some lackluster decision making towards the middle of his day. He hopes to have a better idea what to do by Tuesday’s Knockout Round.
“I think I’ll spend most of my day Tuesday on the south end of the lake,” Martens said. “That’s where I had all my bites today, but I just left it like a ding dong and it almost cost me. I lost about seven fish today and I have confidence that they were all keepers. I hate being the last guy in, it’s the worst place to be.”
Elias Just Short of Knockout Round
It’s no secret that Paul Elias struggled on the Bass Pro Tour in 2019. Come 2020, he was ready to flip the page and begin anew. He came out swinging during his first two days of competition but was unable to crack the Top 20. Elias finishes Stage One with seven bass for 17-10.
Although he won’t be moving on to the Knockout Round, the Mississippi pro has no regrets.
“I love this lake even though it’s been really hard on me all week,” Elias said. “I just couldn’t really get anything going. Today when I couldn’t catch anything, I knew SCORETRACKER® wasn’t lighting up from other guys catching a lot so I told myself I was going to take a chance and do something that I like to do.”
What Paul likes to do is crank, and that’s exactly what he did. Elias came back near Lakepoint State Park and found some riprap that he had a feeling that he was going to catch a big one. Elias found success with his crankbait, hooking two scorable 2-pounders in the final hour of competition, but ultimately it wasn’t enough.
“I fished flawlessly in my mind,” Elias said with a grin on his face. “I caught eight fish all day and only three were scorable. It’s tough to be the first man out but someone has to finish there. I’m just glad the weight kind of separated there at the end and I was pounds away from the cut instead of ounces.”
The B&W Trailer Hitches Stage One Presented by Power-Pole continues on Monday with Qualifying Day 4. Watch as the 40 pros in Group B battle to make it into the Top 20 and advance to the Knockout Round. MLF NOW! live coverage starts at 7:45 a.m. CST on MajorLeagueFishing.com and the MLF app.