Mark Martin shows the winning fish on Day 3 of the PWT-Mobridge Walleye Tournament

PWT Mobridge Day 3PM:

Photos and Story by: Juls Davis

May 30th, 2008

Mark Martin Wins the PWT at Lake Oahe!

PWT Pro and veteran Walleye angler, Mark Martin is no stranger to winning. Today he added another win to his name, by edging out the two day leader, Aaron Deal, by 2.72 pounds, by weighing in a total of 47.93 pounds over three days.

Juls: So Mark, what does it feel like to win this event? Aaron led it for two days, and you came from behind to win it. What does it feel like to be the one to win?

Mark: Ah, I feel great about it. I don't like to, you know, have to burst someone else's bubble mine's been bursted a bunch of times, he's young and if he deals with it, he's going to have a time where he's up on stage too, so, no, I work so HARD at this, and this is just a big bonus when this happens. You never even anticipate it, and it's one of those things that I told Dave Anderson, he and I were talking and I said, geez I never thought that for three days, basically, that I could fish one little tiny spot, and that's when I won the championship back in 1990. I fished one little tiny spot and today we caught over 100 and some fish, and it almost got to the point of work, because you throw out and you say, I got another bite (laughing), it's like we couldn't hardly keep our rods in the water. It was a lot of fun having that kind of action all the time, so you know...

Seeing fish, you'd lay on them. Either the dead rods lying down, or the fish would move out away from the boat, and you'd catch them on a jig. So, you'd move some more and sit on them cast around and catch some more move around and then find them again. So, they must've all been either coming down the shore line or moving up from deeper water.

Artie Arndt, of Ortonville, MN was the Co Angler first place winner. He shared some thoughts about the PWT experience with me

Juls: How does it feel to come in first? Is this your first Pro/Am event?

Artie: This is my third Pro/Am. I did two RCL's (FLW's) in the past, and now this one. It feels really good!

It was kind of a shock. I just got really lucky with three really good partners, and as it ends up, it was all three of those guy's best days on the water.

And then getting that big fish on day one was just, I couldn't ask for anything better.

Juls: Do you remember the names of all your Pros?

Artie: I do now, (he says laughing) Aaron Deal I fished with the first day, and we had that big basket. On day 2, I fished with Dan Stier, and caught just a TON of fish tore up my hands... And, today I fished with "Doc" Sampson, and that was just awesome. Watching how he does his boat control and electronics I mean, that really paid off!

Juls: Is there anything you want to tell our WC users about fishing as a Co Angler in one of these events?

Artie: Well, I think that anybody that is considering doing the Co Angler should definitely do it. It was only 375.00, and I learned a ton of information and had a lot of fun, and I would encourage anyone that wanted to do it, to just do it!

Aaron Deal, the Rookie who led the event for the first two days, finished in second place with a total weight of 45.21 pounds.

Juls: How do you feel with your finish?

Aaron: Um, I almost think it's too good to be true. I had three good days really, nothing went wrong. I knew that we needed one good fish, and I knew we didn't get it.

So, in my opinion one fish short we had that fish on too, so that's the way it goes.

Juls: Will that one fish haunt you?

Aaron: No! Not at all, because I'm sure the other guys had the same thing happen. I had more good luck than bad luck, and the fish all came in the right order, and I can't complain one bit. I did my absolute best, and I can't ask for more than that. That's fishing. I got beat by one other guy, and that's ok in my book!

Rounding out the top 5 is:

In 3rd place: Rick Olson with 44.65 pounds

4th place: Brent Beitelspacher with 44.38 pounds

5th place: Tommy Skarlis with 44.36 pounds

A few of the winning techniques/presentations:

Dave Randash:
“I was pulling right on top of the ridge…it was the key deal. Pulling crankbaits 2.1 -2.2mph.”

“Running the channel is like playing Russian roulette with a handgun that has a bullet in every cylinder…I mean, sooner or later, you’re going to whack a tree. So, by reading your mapping system, and running the centuries old channel, the original one, you can run it nice and safe, because there are no trees in there.”

Scott Fairbairn:
“Since I got here I pulled out the leadcore rods and put Shad Raps, and Jointed Shad Raps, and Glass Shad Raps, and all kinds of stuff in the water…everything pretty much caught fish.

But, what would happen is throughout the day, the fish would slide up a little bit shallower at times, and then slide out a little bit deeper, and you could see them on the electonics, but if picked one depth and trolled it, like you would have to do with mono or super lines, your crankbaits only run to one depth, so you would have to stay at that depth.

With leadcore, when I make a mistake on that break, and get out a little bit deeper, I can let the lines out a little bit…get them down to the right depth…little bit later, pull up shallow again, wind them in a little bit, and catch those fish.

Leadcore really is the best tool for fish that are sliding up and down the breaks.”

Mike McMaken:
“We were fishing with Wally Divers and Reef Runners… brown back and orange bottoms, is what we were using. And, we were using 7-8 colors of lead, trolling 42 to 32 foot of water…on the contour breaks. We were actually catching the fish that were sliding up into the shallows.”