Marshals picked up tips from the professional anglers throughout the tournament
MARCH 2018
“So, the fish are less pressured. There was also some current coming through there, which really helped.” Omori estimated that he caught 50 keepers off the spot during the course of the tournament. But on the final day, he managed only four and was forced to go looking elsewhere to fill out his limit. Fortunately, one of his four fish from the area weighed more than 4 pounds – his second biggest bass of the week – and his cushion over the rest of the field was enough to lift him to victory, even without a stellar final day. There were plenty more fishing tales told at the Lake Martin event, which was the first of nine tournaments in the Bassmaster Elite Series. South Carolina angler Andy Montgomery had an unusual run of marshals in his boat over the weekend. On Thursday he had a man who was a funeral home owner, and Friday his marshal was a coroner. “If I had come out here Saturday and the marshal would have told me they were a florist, I wasn’t going,” Montgomery said. Montgomery, a Clemson fan, said he started out his day finding out the name of the university his marshal went for – Auburn or Alabama. “I wanted to make sure I didn’t say something that might get me killed right off the bat,” Montgomery said. Kalamazoo pro Jonathon VanDam had an anxious week, as he and his wife Arika were expecting their first child at anytime. VanDam said the baby was actually due the day before the tournament on Lake Martin began, but he and his wife made the decision for him to fish in the first Bassmaster Elite tournament of the year and hope for the best. “We had a plan in place in case she went into labor while I was gone, but luckily, we didn’t have to use it,” VanDam said. “It has been one of the most stressful weeks I’ve been through, just out there trying to fish and halfway waiting for the phone to ring. We made it through the week, fished on Sunday and got a pretty nice paycheck.” VanDam made the cut, fished Saturday and Sunday and completed
LAKE 35