Day 3 with Martens - Bassmaster

Aaron Martens started Day Three in the same place as the previous two days, a sizeable marina near the mouth of Middle River.

Despite it being high tide, Martens quickly hooks up.

Bringing in a 2 1/2- to 3-pound fish on one of early casts.

The fish would kick off the day in stellar form.

Providing Martens with an excellent start.

Martens would continue working the area.

Casting closely to the many pilings along the docks.

And in quick order, hook up again.

This one came from the same spot as his biggest fish from Day Two.

It would send Martens rushing around the boat.

Where it looked like the fish would almost jump into the boat.

Martens, though, would have to go to his knees to dig it out.

And once again, his biggest fish of the day would be in the boat.

The hefty largemouth would bring a smile to his face.

It would be almost a pound larger than his first catch.

But with the two keepers would give him about 6 1/2 pounds.

A flotilla of more than a dozen boats watched from outside the marina.

And Martens tried to give them every chance to see how his day started.

But then things got slow.

Martens continued to work.

Every once in a while hooking up with a striped bass or white perch. But the largemouth were hard to come by.

Martens would just wade through the striped bass and hope the next one would be green.

He was covered from every angle as he worked the seawalls.

Occasionally needing a push to stay in line.

And working every corner.

But after his initial burst, most of his casts went unnoticed by bass.

He decided to move to another marina.

And almost as soon as he arrived, he got bit.

This one made a big splash.

All the way to the boat.

But it wasn’t what Martens was looking for.

After minutes of trying to make it long enough,

Martens had to toss it back.

He worked slowly and thoroughly around the pilings.

And eventually hooked up with another small bass.

This one measured and gave him about 7 1/2 pounds.

When the pilings didn’t produce any bigger bites, he began to work some nearby grass beds.

This time throwing a topwater frog in hopes of coaxing a big fish to bite.

When that didn’t work, it was back to the pilings and smaller fish.

He made some adjustments and left what he called “dink” marina.

And returned to where he had caught most of his weight.

Almost immediately, he hooked up and was broke off on the barnacles lining the dock. After a moment of angst he looked at the lost fish as a positive sign that fish were still there.

Around the corner, he would catch his third keeper.

This one would give him about 10 pounds for the day.

He settled into the area and became even more thorough.

Hooking up with a yellow perch

Before bringing his limit fish in the boat.

This one scared him because it had rubbed his line against so many barnacles.

But once the fish was in the boat his whole demeanor changed.

He now had about 14 pounds.

And he was starting to sense that something special was happening.

A few minutes later he was hooked up again.

The hefty largemouth gave a big fight.

And came really close to brushing a barnacle-covered piling.

But was quickly swung aboard.

Once over the gunwales, Martens was giddy as a child.

Practically yelling his jubilation.

He showed it off to the Bassmaster Live show,

Then to the camera.

And really got happy when he culled, pushing him close to 16 pounds, by taking this little guy out of the box.

He abandoned his pilings to see if he could catch them another way and quickly hooked up.

This one gave him his final weight of 16-5.

His excitement forced a group of kids on the dock to come running and Martens was all too happy to show them his final catch of the day.