2. 3.
3.
PHOTO BY PHOENIX MOORE PHOTO BY JODY WHITE
PHOTO BY ROB MATSUURA
“green bushes and some
hard cover” that were also
holding shad. He used that
same Strike King bait as a
trailer on a swim jig to form
a formidable one-two punch.
Making Rose’s win all the
more impressive was the fact
that he was the final angler
to make the cut in
Elimination Round 3. The
opening rounds were a struggle
for the second-year MLF
pro, but a key bass he flipped
up in the Elimination Round
revealed a pattern that carried
him through the Sudden
Death Round and into the
Championship Round.
From there, it was all
about leaning on that pattern
to dust the competition,
win his first MLF Cup event
and secure a spot in the
2020 General Tire World
Championship.
3. TACKLE WAREHOUSE
PRO CIRCUIT
Lake Martin
March 18–21, 2020
Three consistently solid
days anchored by a tournament-best
limit of 17 pounds,
10 ounces on day two
earned FLW veteran Jason
Abram his first career victory
at the Tackle Warehouse Pro
Circuit’s third stop of the
2020 season at Lake Martin.
With the off day removed
between the final day of
practice and the first day of
competition (due to the
onset of COVID-19 restrictions),
Abram was able to
take full advantage of the
pattern he found during the
practice period, which
necessitated some warm
weather and sunshine to
keep big prespawn females
tucked under docks. With
conditions holding the first
two days, Abram was able
to run his pattern to near
perfection, jumping out to
the lead after day two.
Day three brought falling
water and cloud cover,
though, and Abram was
worried his pattern was
going to dry up. To make
matters worse, he wasn’t
exactly catching a bunch of
fish those first two days –
just the right ones.
Abram wasn’t just targeting
random docks, either. He
exclusively worked the final
few docks in the back of
“flatter pockets,” and bites
were few and far between.
Abram says he caught a fish
every 15 pockets or so.
To compensate for the
changing conditions on
days three and four, Abram
dedicated a few hours each
morning to targeting spotted
bass with a Reaction
Innovations Skinny Dipper
to fill out his limit and calm
his nerves. Martin is known
for its spotted bass, though
it’s hard to make a run at
winning a tournament on
spotted bass alone. He
needed just one big bite to
seal the deal on day four.
Limit secured, Abram
went back to work on his
docks, twitching a weightless
Reaction Innovations Flirt
Worm in search of a couple
big bites. He got one – a 4-
pound spotted bass, bumping
his total to 52-9 – but the
second one never came,
which turned Abram into a
bundle of nerves until the
dust settled on the weigh-in
stage and his name remained
atop the leaderboard.
JUNE-JULY 2020 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | FLWFISHING.COM 79