Spotted bass acumen carried Anaya to Lake Martin win

Fisher Anaya has fished a total of four tournaments at Lake Martin. His worst finish? Second.

His latest triumph there came last week in his second career Bassmaster Elite Series event as he saw his daily weights climb by at least 1 pound, 5 ounces as he finished with 54-6 to edge Brock Mosley by 1 1/2 pounds.

“I’ve spent a lot of time there for high school tournaments,” Anaya said.

Prior to Martin going off limits for the Elite Series, he jumped in a small local derby at the lake and won that, so it’s safe to say he was well-equipped to break the lake down even further when he returned for practice and the tournament.

“It’s been really good to me,” he added. “It sets up like Smith and Hartwell and Lanier. I just understand spots really well. It felt like every decision I made was for the right reason.”

Anaya is latest newcomer to the Elite Series to collect a win in his rookie season. Since the Elite Series was formed in 2006, there have been 12 such occurrences with 10 of them taking place since 2021, a testament to the youth movement that has infiltrated Bassmaster’s top series in recent years.

The win also capped off a spectacular 12-month run for the 20-year-old, who has registered eight top-10 finishes in his last 13 Bassmaster tournaments.

“It’s been crazy,” Anaya said. “The last year, everywhere I go no matter where I’m at something always gives me a hint or clue and every decision I’ve made was the right one,” he said.

He recalled boat-flipping a 9-pounder at the Lake Okeechobee Elite Qualifier last November en route to a third-place finish that helped secure his ticket to the Elite Series.

“I’m not supposed to land that fish that way,” he said. “It’s part of God’s plan. It was just my time to win and my time to do well. No matter where I went or what I did , it was right.”

Here are some additional details on how the Eva, Ala., native picked apart Lake Martin.

Practice

When Anaya arrived at Martin for three days of practice, he quickly developed a productive pattern targeting shallow docks with a swim jig and dock poles with a neko rig or dice-style baits. 

“I felt really good about it,” he said. “I had 14 pounds each day and thought I had enough areas to catch them, but everything had left from pre-practice.”

As he sensed the dock bite was starting to fade, he adapted and found fish on shallow rock and along points. Water temperature was a key determining factor in where he set up.

“The backs of the big creeks were super cold, like 47-48 degrees – not quite what I was looking for,” he said. “I moved out to the middle section and found it was 49 to 51 and that’s where I got most of my bites.”

He also noticed fish were seemingly reversing course. Rather than pushing toward the back of the creek arms as part of their pre-spawn ritual, they headed back out toward the main lake.

“I was trying to target fish moving in,” he said. “But something forced them to come back out. I’m not sure if they like to spawn on the main lake or what.”

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 11-6

> Day 2: 5, 12-13

> Day 3: 5, 14-7

> Day 4: 5, 15-12

> Total = 20, 54-6

Anaya opened the event with 11-6, which by Martin standards is pretty good. It had him in 15th place.

“I knew I didn’t lose it,” he said. “I always go by the saying, ‘You can’t win it on day 1 but you can lose it.’”

Most of his day-1 fish came skipping a jig and dropping dice-style baits around docks with muddy water a key ingredient to the strategy. He lost a couple a spotted bass at the boat that he’d lured away from docks and noticed the patterns he’d developed in practice were starting to dwindle.

“I wasn’t seeing as many fish so I knew I had to make some changes,” he said.

He started day 2 in a marina hoping to coax a big largemouth or two and caught a 2 1/2 before moving to an area that he had high hopes for. It didn’t materialize so he ran to some cleaner water and “tried to force a largemouth pattern, but that went to crap.”

The scrambly nature of his day settled down when he pulled into a pocket he’d never fished before and caught three spotted bass on three consecutive casts.

“It was just a smaller pocket that I think a lot of guys just overlooked,” he said. “It had a lot of deep water nearby and a lot of stuff in the water for fish to stage on like stumps, rock and brush piles.

“I guess every fish that I’d found around that area had swam in there.”

He wound up with a stout 12-13 to jump into sixth place after day 2, a little more than two pounds behind Mosley, who led after days 1 and 2.

His target for day 3 was the 13-pound range as he wanted to sew up a spot in the top 10 on day 4. He began the day in the same marina from day 2 and lost one and caught one decent largemouth. Sensing that bite was fading, he then moved back to the pocket that bailed him out the day before and hit paydirt again tossing around a dice-style bait.

“I caught 14 pounds within 10 minutes of getting there,” he said. “Each day it was pretty much the same. They were set up really shallow. I actually sight-fished three or four of my keepers.”

His 14-07 stringer gave him 38-10 and a two-ounce lead over Mosley entering the final day.

Anaya spent the entirety of day 4 back in the pocket he’d found on day 2 and continued to catch solid spotted bass. In fact, over the final two days his smallest fish was a 2 1/2-pounder.

“That’s what set me apart,” he said. “I ran straight to that pocket. After seeing what was in there on day 3, I knew I needed a 14-pound bag so I figured I might as well live or die in there.”

The highlight was a 3-12 that ate his dice-style creature bait just before 9 a.m.

“That was the bite I was looking for all week,” he said. “I didn’t know I could catch one that big chasing spots. I knew she was big. It was just out of eye sight in water that was about 2 feet deep. I saw her outline and watched her eat the bait. I saw her come up and how big she was and I knew I had to land her.”

Ultimately, he put together the biggest stringer of the event on day 4, a 15-12 bag that pushed his total to 54-6 and sewed up the $100,000 payday.

“I think I cranked the motor two times all day,” he said.

Winning Gear Notes

> Minnow gear: 6’9” medium-light 13 Fishing Myth Minnow Shaker spinning rod, unnamed spinning reel, 16-pound unnamed braided line, 12-pound Sufix Advance fluorocarbon (leader), 1/4-ounce unnamed ballhead jig (2/0 hook), 4.25” Rapala Crush City Freeloader (Tennessee Shad).

> Swimjig gear: 7’4” heavy action 13 Fishing Myth casting rod, prototype 13 Fishing casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 20-pound Sufix Advance fluorocarbon line, 1/4-ounce unnamed swimjig (brown), Rapala Crush City Clean Up Craw trailer (green-pumpkin).

> Dice-style gear: 7’4” medium-light 13 Fishing Myth spinning rod, unnamed spinning reel, same line combo as minnow gear, size 5 VMC Redline treble hook, unnamed dice style bait (natural colors).

2nd: Brock Mosley

> Day 1: 5, 15-7

> Day 2: 5, 10-15

> Day 3: 5, 12-2

> Day 4: 5, 14-6

> Total = 20, 52-14

Mosley spent the majority of his practice out deep utilizing his live sonar around brush piles to see if there was any semblance of quality of the spotted bass.

“I caught one 3-pound spot and nothing else over 1 3/4 pounds,” he said. “On the last day of practice, I moved up shallow and never caught anything but I had a couple slapt at a spinnerbait.”

He started day 1 out deep, but by mid-morning he had headed to the bank and got dialed in on what he would be doing the rest of the way.

“I was focused on shallow spawning flats where the fish were pulling on or sitting just off the flat,” he said. “They were just staging areas."

Stained water wound up being a key as it would warm quicker on days where the sun was out.

“It was just a textbook pattern,” he said. “My best fish on day 3 came off a secondary point just before the spawning flat. That’s as textbook as it gets.”

> Vibrating jig gear: 7’6” medium-heavy Ark Fishing Invoker Series casting rod, Ark Fishing Gravity casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 17-pound P-Line 100% fluorocarbon line, 3/8-ounce Z-Man tungsten ChatterBait Elite EVO (clearwater shad), 4” Yamamoto Baits Zako trailer (sight flash).

> He also caught fish on a jig, squarebill crankbait and a spinnerbait during the event. “There were a lot of fish in less than a foot of water,” he said.

3rd: Emil Wagner

> Day 1: 5, 11-1

> Day 2: 5, 14-10

> Day 3: 5, 11-12

> Day 4: 5, 13-6

> Total = 20, 50-13

Emil Wagner didn’t have long to stew about his 97th-place finish at Lake Guntersville in the season opener and he’s grateful for that. Lake Martin represented his comfort zone with spotted bass on the menu and he deployed a variety of finesse techniques to notch a third-place finish.

“It felt really good,” he said when asked how it felt to bounce back from a dismal showing at Guntersville. “Obviously, that was by far my worst Elite Series finish and one of my worst ones. I fished the Ultimate Angler (Championship) there without the scope and finished 11th, but that whole trap and ChatterBait deal in the offshore grass – I don’t like doing it to be honest. I thought I’d catch them, but it wound up being a nightmare event.

“It felt good to get to Martin and put it behind me. I needed a top 10 to cancel that out and that’s exactly what I did.”

Wagner said the unique challenge at Martin was zeroing in on areas where the above-average fish resided. For him, that was up shallow.

“It was probably one of the best practices I’ve ever had,” he said. “I figured out the best fish were super shallow. Each day, I was catching a 2 1/2- to 3-pounder. I’d fished the (Bassmaster) Open there so I knew how tough it can be.”

> Neko rig gear: 7’2” medium-light Fenwick World Class spinning rod, Abu Garcia Zenon X 3000 spinning reel, 8-pound Berkley X5 braided line, 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line (leader), 1/0 Berkley Fusion19 Aberdeen hook, Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Hit Worm Magnum (mimizu), 1/16-oz. unnamed nail weight.

> Minnow gear: Same rod and reel and lines as Neko rig, 1/8- and 3/8-ounce Berkley Fusion19 Hybrid Jighead, prototype Berkley minnow bait (wakasagi style color).

> Dice-style bait gear: 6’10” medium-light Abu Garcia Zenon spinning rod, same reel and lines as above, various size hooks, various size unnamed dice style baits, 1/8- and 3/16-ounce unnamed weights.

> Shaky-head gear: 7’1” medium-action Fenwick World Class spinning rod, Abu Garcia Rocket spinning reel, same line as above, 1/4-ounce Berkley Fusion19 Shakey Head jig, 5” Berkley PowerBait Maxscent General (green-pumpkin party).

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