WATERVILLE, Maine – If you were given the lineup for the first Elimination Round of the 2019 Wiley X Summit Cup presented by B & W Trailer Hitches and informed that the 10 anglers competing were on a deep, clear smallmouth fishery where a drop-shot would be a major player, it would’ve been pretty foolish to bet against Aaron Martens.

Martens has demonstrated his smallmouth-catching abilities multiple times in Major League Fishing competition, and the fact that the Alabama pro was competing on a fishery that he’s already had some success on – Great Pond, in the Belgrades Lakes region near Waterville, Maine – would make it doubly foolish to bet against him.

Martens proved as much by putting 21 smallies on SCORETRACKER to the tune of 40 pounds, 11 ounces, comfortably outdistancing Skeet Reese (31-11), Brent Ehrler (29-11), Brent Chapman (18-3), Ott DeFoe (18-1) and Keith Poche (17-9) for the win.

Martens advanced to Sudden Death for the second time in two trips to Waterville.

“I really like northern fisheries in general, but I felt even more comfortable (on Great Pond) because I’d had some success there before,” Martens said. “I remembered some of those areas from the 2015 Summit Cup, and had a pretty good idea that I’d do well, just based on (experience).”

Just as he did in 2015 – when he and Brent Ehrler fished within sight of each other (and engaged in a little smack talking) in a half-mile by half-mile area – Martens keyed in on both a vertical bite yo-yoing a drop-shot, and on a more horizontal presentation where he would cast and drop-swim a 3-inch Roboworm.

And it became apparent almost immediately that he would be the angler to beat: Martens landed the first fish of the day, five of the first 12 fish of the morning, and finished the first round with 12 fish for 23-6.

He would hold no less than a 3-pound lead for the rest of the day

“I dropped on a few in the morning, just looking at fish on my graphs,” Martens said. “I found the Mother Lode and just caught a bunch of fish in a short amount of time. It kinda slicked off and got brighter in the second period, and there was a lot of noise and boat traffic. It was just tougher on everyone after the first period.”

Ish Monroe, Shaw Grigsby, Greg Hackney and Jeff Kriet failed to advance.