By Jason Duran
The Alabama Bass Trail South Division began the 2022 season from Logan Martin Lake, a lake well known for its spotted bass. 211 of 225 teams weighed at least one fish and the majority of those teams weighed in a 5 bass limit.
ABT on Alabama’s Logan Martin Lake.
Teams found this tournament to be very competitive as the weights were very tight among the field. The team of Rob Lee and Steve Winslett took the win with 17.72 pounds of Logan Martin bass.
Typically, Logan Martin Lake is visited by the ABT towards the end of the season when the lake levels are at full pool, but with the newly constructed Lincoln’s Landing, access to the lake is much easier when the lake is in winter pool. This provides more opportunities for tournaments to be hosted. The town of Lincoln invested millions into this facility with a large multiple lane boat ramp and spacious concrete parking. Construction continues on a large pavilion and other facilities. When this project is complete, it will be one of the best fishing destinations in Alabama.
Steve Winslett and Rob Lee are quickly becoming one of the most consistent teams on the ABT. ABT photo
Steve Winslett and Rob Lee are quickly becoming one of the most consistent teams on the ABT. Year after year their names are at the top of the leader board. Once again today, they take home another victory and $10,750 including bonus from ABT Gear and Garmin highest finisher. They said, “it’s good to get a good start to the year against the high caliber of fishermen in this trail.” The lake had lots of current in practice and on tournament day. They spent their day fishing south of Lincoln’s Landing. Earlier in the week, they “found the bait fish to be pushed up in shallow pockets to get out of the current, and the big fish just followed the bait into those pockets. We caught our fish early this morning in those type areas right off the main river. The fish were setting up just outside the river within 20 yards of the current seam. We caught most of our fish early in the morning. They hit a spinner bait early, and after the bite slowed down, we switched over to the jig. We also noticed the spinner bait bite came back right at the end of the day. The fish really wanted it a certain way causing us to slow down as the day went on. Because of the muddy water, we found that throwing a spinnerbait with a painted white blade helped match the bait fish better.”
For them matching the bait fish with their bait was important. “This time of year bait fish have a really white hue color to them.” The spinner bait used also had an orange and yellow skirt because the fish need color as well as the blade vibration, and this time of year orange is a great color of choice. The second bait they used was a black and blue ½ Strike King Hack Attack jig with a blue sapphire Zoom Chunk trailer. They weighed in a mixed bag of Largemouth and spotted bass finding both grouped up in the same area and fairly the same size. They were very thankful to get this win and hope to continue the success this year at the next four events.
Ryan Parks and Brian West, a first-year team on the ABT, took second place starting the year off with a very
Ryan Parks and Brian West, a first-year team on the ABT, took second place. ABT photo
successful finish. They consider Logan Martin Lake home and have been successful in other trails at Logan Martin. Today they shared the game plan was to focus on catching spotted bass. They spent their day “fishing channel swings where current would have a break in it right off the river channel and the shad would get pushed in the shallow areas.” They targeted these fish using shad colored jerk baits, swim baits and rattle traps. They had to downsize their line to get the fish to bite they changed to 12 to 14 Fluorocarbon and later in the day they had to slow down their retrieve. They weighed in a full bag of Spotted Bass that tipped the scales at 17.21 which was good enough for second place and $500. Going forward they hope to stay high in the points and win AOY and make the ABT Championship in their first year.
Eric Morris and Ben Williamson secured third place with 16.83 pounds. ABT photo
Eric Morris and Ben Williamson secured third place with 16.83 pounds. They found Logan Martin Lake to be very productive when it came to catching fish. Ben shared, “this lake is very diverse from the north end of the lake where it fishes more like a river system to down south where its spreads out with more pockets and creek channels. We focused mainly on the mid lake areas in shallow creeks and targeted shallow structure. Our original game plan didn’t pan out with the weather change and the water temp dropping, so we looked for new areas and found two good fish later in the day.”
The team worked hard to locate fish in practice using their own boats separately and looking to find fish that suits their style of fishing. Ben is more of a “shallow water fishermen and Eric focuses on more offshore areas. They combined their practice information to make a plan for tournament day.” Eric feels it was important to finish at the top saying, “you always want that hardware to take home and third place is the hardware. We really want to do well this year, and our focus is on AOY. We were really close a couple of years ago but just missed our chance, so we want to get it this yearz.”
The Top 10 places are shown below. For a complete list of standings visit: Alabama Bass Trails website.
Download and listen to the ABT Podcast on your favorite Podcast app by searching for “Alabama Bass Trail Podcast.” The podcast is released each week on Tuesday.
The sponsors of the 2022 Alabama Bass Trail include: Phoenix Boats, Academy Sports, Alabama Power, America’s First Federal Credit Union, American Trailer Rental Group, BAJIO, Berkley, Big Bite Baits, Bill Penny Automotive, Black Rife Coffee Company, Buck N’ Bass, Anheuser – Bush, Inc., E3 Sports Apparel, Fish Neely Henry Lake.com, Garmin, Jack’s, Lew’s, Mountain Dew, Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association, Power-Pole, Strike King, Sweet Home Alabama, T-H Marine, Wedowee Marine, Yamaha, Navionics and YETI Coolers.
