Winning Big On Logan Martin

Like its Bassmaster Tour counterpart, the FLW Tour has made a habit of holding its championship on some tough fisheries. But that's not as much the case with Alabama's Lake Logan Martin, site of this week's FLW Tour Championship.

Logan Martin is no Cross Lake, Douglas Lake or James River. Plenty of big largemouths and surly Coosa River spotted bass roam its 15,263 acres. Yet in the middle of August, this lake is bound to be a tough test for the FLW Tour's 48 best. Here's how three anglers who won championships (all Bassmaster Classics) on Logan Martin passed that test with flying colors. (Editor's note: None of the following anglers are fishing the championship this week.)

1997: Dion Hibdon

Dion Hibdon won the most recent Classic (1997) on Logan Martin with 34-13 (5-fish limit), and did it without weighing in a single largemouth.

"I didn't target big spots (exclusively), but I caught multiple 4-pounders every day of the tournament," he said. "I caught plenty of largemouths too, but my best 15 fish were all spotted bass. (The lake) has some big spots in it. The year Bob (Hamilton) won, dad (Guido Hibdon) caught three 6-pounders in practice, and I caught one almost 7."

His main pattern was skipping jig-and-plastic combinations under deep docks on the lower end, but he also put in plenty of time in the shallows. "I kept it real simple," he said. "If I could feel current, I fished my deep spots. When there wasn't any current, I would be on the bank chasing shallow fish."

He added: "The bite always hinges on current there. Those fish are professional eaters. They get accustomed to feeding whenever the water moves, and the deepwater fish won't bite at all without current."

He ended up catching the bulk of his big spotted bass by skipping a Luck E Strike Dion's Secret skirted grub on a 1/4-ounce jighead.

"Overall, it's a pretty flat lake," he said. "Most of the banks are fairly flat, in 6-7 feet of water. On the lower end, it's different. The banks are steeper, maybe 15 feet. The key for me was finding pole docks along those steeper banks, and being there when the water was running."

Hibdon said it's anyone's guess how this year's FLW Tour Championship will be won. "I've talked to some of the guys who've been fishing down there, and they said the water's been unseasonably cool, like in the low 80s. It was never like that when we were there.

"And I hear (Alabama Power) has been pulling water late in the afternoon, which won't do anybody any good. So there's really nothing saying it will be won shallow or deep. The bottom line is, it's a great lake, there's plenty of room to fish for 48 guys and you can do a little bit of everything to catch them."

1993: David Fritts

In 1993, David Fritts pulled in 48-06 (7-fish limit) over 3 days to win the Classic in his first Classic appearance. And when the Classic returned to Logan Martin in 1997, he finished just 6 ounces behind Hibdon. Fritts took 6th in a 1998 Bassmaster Top 150 (now Tour) there too, but it was the '93 Classic win that crowned him king of crankbaiting.

"I caught almost all my fish cranking," he said, "but I caught very few of them in deep water. I kept trying deep because it was so hot you couldn't breathe. I don't know what it is about the fish there – they would always be deep in early summer (pre-practice) but not in late summer. I think the oxygen gets low and they move up. That happened in every Classic."

His magic depth turned out to be 5-8 feet in '93, and though the TV cameras made it look like he won the tournament by cranking on one spot, he actually fished new water every day, and even caught some on plastics.

He said: "I had one spot where I caught more than anywhere else, but I had to cover water and make a little milk run every day. I'd fish fast with the crankbait (Poe's 400), and once I caught one, I'd pull a Carolina rig (Zoom Lizard) or a throw a big Texas-rig worm (11-inch Zoom ole Monster Worm) and occasionally get another one.

"As each day went on, I fished further up the river because the fish got more aggressive and shallower later in the day, and I was able to get on fresh fish every day."

He mainly fished pole docks on the lower end, and while upriver targeted points, ledges and wood cover. Of the 21 fish he weighed, more than half were spotted bass. He said he knew the tournament couldn't be won on one species or the other, and was able to figure out the best times to catch both.

"I did the opposite of what most people do," he said. "I would fish deeper (at the lower end of the lake) in the morning and go shallow later in the day. They were pulling more water in the mornings, so that's when I hit my deep (8 feet) spotted bass areas. Spots won't bite without current, and I felt I had a better chance (when current died) with largemouths in shallow water in the upper end. Getting that timing downpat was key."

1992: Robert Hamilton Jr.

Robert Hamilton Jr. won on Logan Martin in 1992 with 59-06 (7-bass limit), the third-heaviest Classic weight ever brought to the scales. Unlike Fritts, he stayed in the lake's lower end and found a fruitful deep-water structure bite, which suggests that Logan Martin may be different from year to year.

"I'm one of those guys that fishes structure more than I fish shallow," he said. "I'm in my comfort zone in 12-20 feet of water. The docks and other visible cover there get pounded to death, and I wanted to find schools of fish, stuff that nobody was fooling with."

He fished with a local expert in pre-practice who showed him some good holes 8-12 feet deep, but "the problem was, everybody was fishing them," he said.

"I looked for those same kind of places (primarily clay points), but I went out deeper. It seemed like as it got hotter and the boat traffic got worse, the fish moved deeper. I ended up fishing in 16-20 feet, and I really believe the fish were untapped at that depth by the locals. "

He said the key was finding points with large schools of shad on them: "I had an eye on my electronics all the time. The fish fed at different parts of the day. If they were there, I'd just sit and wait (the fish) out and try to find something they'd hit."

More often that not, it was a Norman DD-22 crankbait – "If there was clay on the lip, I knew I'd be in business" – but he dredged up keepers with a variety of baits over 3 days of the tournament. "The fish weren't positioned in any one direction, and where I was, I don't think current was a big factor," he said. "So I fished one depth, but with a lot of different lures.

"I threw a 1-ounce Stanley spinnerbait, a big Cordell Hot Spot, a big Stanley jig – there was no clear winner. You make your money if you say you won it on one bait, but the key for me was using different lures until you got a bite. I would start on a crankbait, and if I wouldn't catch one, I kept rotating and fishing from all different angles."

Hamilton caught "two to three limits a day without any problem" that year, and also stuck at least one kicker fish each day, including a 6-14 largemouth (the 8th largest ever caught in a Classic), plus a 5-08 largemouth, the only two of that species that he weighed in. "The rest were solid spotted bass," he said.