Bass Fishing May - Jun 2017 | Page 83

CONDITIONS
Weather | wet , cold and windy on day one ; cold and breezy on day two ; warmer with less wind on the weekend air temperature | 35 to 75 degrees Water temperature | 55 to 62 degrees moon phase | nearly full predominant lake features | rocky highland reservoir with many young , submerged trees
practice , it reminded him of a cross between Arkansas ’ Beaver Lake and Alabama ’ s Lewis Smith Lake .
“ Steep and deep ,” Martin says was his initial reaction to seeing Cumberland . “ It looks like Beaver , but it ’ s steeper and deeper . It ’ s much more vertical like Smith . There are no sloping banks ; it ’ s more like canyons . When you get into the very back of a pocket , it ’ s still 25 feet deep .
“ Whenever I encounter steep highland impoundments like that I automatically think suspended fish that relate to vertical cover ,” he says . “ Trees , bluffs , docks – anything they can move up and down on vertically to feel comfortable .”
The other thing that caught Martin off guard was the sheer size of Cumberland . At about 65,000 acres , it ’ s certainly large , and its jagged , seemingly never-ending shoreline only enhances the scale .
“ I knew it was big , but you can ’ t really understand how big until you get on it ,” Martin says . “ The pockets and creeks go for miles and miles . It ’ s pretty overwhelming . It ’ s the kind of lake that lends itself well to pattern fishing because it ’ s so vast .”
the area
According to Martin , the general area he picked to fish during the tournament was a big key to his victory . He spent most of his time in a six-mile section near the dam on the northwest side of the lake . That area of Cumberland features a lot of obscure creeks and pockets that were shielded from the wicked 30-mph northwest winds that rode in on the passage of a cold front .
“ With that nasty weather , my water remained remarkably stable ,” Martin says . “ I heard other guys talking about how their areas had milked up from all the waves and wind off that front . But every day my water looked exactly like it had the day before : clear and green . Water stability was a huge thing for me .”
In addition , Martin found that area of the lake also harbored all three species of bass . photo by andy hagedon
“ Being so far down the lake I was worried it would only be a smallmouth and spotted bass deal ,” Martin says . “ But once I caught a couple of decent largemouths in the backs of those pockets down by the dam , I knew that ’ s where I would fish the tournament . Having access to all three species at one time was a real bonus to me .”
the lures
For the majority of the tournament , Martin relied on one lure : a deep-diving suspending jerkbait in translucent shad that would get down to about 9 feet on 12-pound-test P-Line Tactical Fluorocarbon . Martin normally fishes a suspending jerkbait on 10-pound test , but he bumped it up to 12-pound test at Cumberland because he was fishing around so many trees and bushes .
“ Getting hung up in that stuff with the jerkbait was just part of the process ,” he says . “ Going to 12-pound test allowed me to break the branches off with a steady pull so I could get my bait back easily without breaking it off in the tree .”
Martin committed to the jerkbait because he felt that most of the fish were suspended down about 8 to 10 feet deep in trees that were about 20 to 25 feet tall , based on what he ’ d seen on his forward-looking sonar .
“ Several of the fish I caught during the week I saw as a blob suspended in the tree at about 10 feet ,” he says . “ I ’ d cast past the tree by about 10 yards and work the bait down to the fish ’ s level and watch the fish come get my bait on the screen .”
Martin was also confident that his fish were of the prespawn variety .
“ The temperatures were dropping and the water was rising , so it was a total prespawn deal to me ,” Martin says . “ If they were going on beds , I would have caught more on a jig or shaky head , but I didn ’ t . Even when I had followers on my jerkbait and I pitched back in the area where the fish came from , I never got a bite on the bottom , which told me they were totally prespawn .”
A deep-diving jerkbait produced most of Martin ’ s fish . He sewed up the win on day four by waking a Bomber Long A .
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