Martens “Feels Great” After First Post-Treatment Competition
STURGEON BAY, Wis. – After a long day on the water and battling the Sturgeon Bay swells, it would be safe to assume that the last thing that Aaron Martens would want to do is talk to a writer asking for an interview. However, those that know Aaron know he always down for a good conversation.
“Sure I have time to talk,” Martens said while tying on a new drop-shot weight. “Give me just a second, I kind of need to focus on this knot really quick. That’s the hardest part with the shaking from the radiation.”
Aaron Martens is currently battling one of the most daunting tasks one can face in a lifetime – a battle with cancer. Martens had a pair of surgeries – one on April 6 and the other April 22 – to remove quarter-sized tumors from his brain. After those surgeries, Martens then was faced with weeks of and radiation to try and eradicate any remaining cancerous cells located in his brain.
After all of that (and nearly five months after fishing his last professional event), Martens was back on the water competing against the best anglers in the world on Sturgeon Bay for Stage Five of the 2020 Bass Pro Tour. Granted, he’s a few pounds lighter and still in recovery from his treatment, but that didn’t dampen Martens’ lovable personality from shining through even on a cloudy day in Wisconsin.
“These smallmouth are a lot like me,” Martens explained on the MLF NOW! live stream. “They went through a spawn and a difficult time just a few weeks ago and now they’re just trying to recover. Soon they’ll come back leaner and stronger than ever and continue to fight. That’s just like me.”
MLF NOW! analyst Marty Stone considers Martens a great friend and talked to Martens on a near weekly basis during his treatments. To see Martens back out there competing in a bass boat is something Stone didn’t think he would see this soon after Aaron’s diagnosis.
“Aaron had so many odds against him going into this fight with brain cancer,” Stone said. “All of the work he’s put in over the past few months was to get to this point. He said that he was going to fish again this season and that was hard for me to believe, personally, just knowing what he was about to endure. But he did what Aaron has always done: battle. He beat the odds to get back here and it’s amazing to see.”
#DrivingAMart and the Journey Back
You don’t need a medical degree to know that fighting cancer is no easy task. What little energy Martens had was either spent battling the disease or stealing a few hours on the water with some friends and family.
Martens wasn’t allowed to drive per his doctor’s orders, so the eternal optimist Martens used it as a chance to get creative on his social media pages. The California native would post video after video with the hashtag “#DrivingAMart” to show off who was taking him fishing that day. Sometimes it was his wife Lesley, other times it was good friends from Alabama. No matter who it was, Martens appreciated whatever time he could get out on his local lakes.
“Those were all good days,” Martens said. “To spend time with my friends and family just fishing made the bad days good and the good days great.”
Martens finished his last radiation treatment on June 25, just 10 days before starting to trip to Wisconsin to prepare for his first of two practice days. Although he was exhausted, he quickly regained his energy knowing he was going to get back to doing what he loved.
He and Lesley packed up his Dodge truck, loaded up his Phoenix boat and started making the trek north to Wisconsin. Once he got there for practice, he still couldn’t drive his boat. That’s where #DrivingAMart came back into play.
“MLF allowed my wife to drive my boat during practice this week, which was amazing,” Martens said. “She did awesome handling those swells during practice. It’s been a few years since she’s had to drive a boat in conditions like that, and she did great. I can’t thank her enough.”
Starting off Strong Before a Tough Finish
Martens wasted no time getting back into the swing of things. Although he was nervously shaking with either excitement or exhaustion, the Alabama pro jumped out to a quick start on his first day back with six bass for 16-4 in the first period, including a 3-12 smallmouth.
“It felt good to be back,” Martens expressed. “I kind of had the jitters out there to start the day. I don’t think it was a side effect of the radiation, I was just excited to be out there competing.”
He continued his impressive start in the second period, moving into the Top 10 while working with a combination of a crankbait and a soft plastic drop-shot offshore fighting the swells. Martens finished Day 1 with 18 bass for 52-2, good enough for 12th place heading into Day 2.
“Lesley told me I wasn’t going to be able to go out there and win the whole thing on the first day,” Martens joked. “I feel as close to 100 percent as I can feel, I’m happy with where I’m at in the standings, and I feel good about my strategy heading into Sunday. It was a good day for sure.”
On Day 2 of his week at Sturgeon Bay, Martens was unable to find similar luck as he did on Day 1. He struggled to figure out the bite, adding only 13 pounds of smallmouth to his total weight, dropping him into 24th place. Martens’ Stage Five ends after missing out on the Top 20 in Group A by 9-14.
Martens’ Message
Martens said that he got up earlier on first qualifying day than he has in a month, so he spent his day off catching up on as much sleep as he could. After that, in typical AMart fashion, he worked on tackle and went for a run with his family at one of the local state parks.
He says constant physical activity is something that has helped him tremendously during his recovery. Something else that’s helped is the people in the bass fishing community, and he wants everyone who has wished him well to know that.
“I just want everyone to know how thankful I am that they care so much about me,” Martens offered as his parting thought. “It’s very touching and humbling to me. I want them to know that their kindness helps me feel better. That good energy and mojo helps people like me in these situations. The people in the fishing industry are all good people. We need people like that in this world.”