Around 8:58 a.m., Johnathan Willis boated his team’s second keeper and his partner — fellow Floridian and Bassmaster Elite Scott Martin — noted the significance: “In tournament fishing, it’s all about goals. Our first goal was to get a (two-fish) limit, and we did that.”
With a decorated career including Bassmaster Classic qualification, a Forrest Wood Cup win and multiple FLW Tour titles, Martin’s as solid as it gets in the competitive bass world. But he’s no stranger to the briny playing field. Martin keeps a 42-foot Freeman in Islamorada, where he runs a charter fishing and offshore tournament operation.
Between the blue-water stuff and plenty of inshore fishing from Florida to Venice, La., Martin had no trouble shifting gears from largemouth bass to redfish.
“This is what I do this time of year,” Martin said. “A lot of people are in tree stands deer hunting, and I’m saltwater fishing for tarpon, redfish, snook or offshore species. I enjoy saltwater fishing this time of year; it’s kind of my break, so it was a good opportunity to fish this event.”
With both partners making their first visit to the Texas Coast, learning the lay of the land has been crucial.
“This is different from any inshore fishery I’ve ever fished because of how vast the shallow water habitat is,” Martin said. “It really takes a lot of time to figure out where you can go and where you can’t go. We spent a lot of our time looking at Google Earth.
“We had zero information before we got here, so we’re kind of winging it. It took us a while, but we found some little areas where we can fish. If we can do well in this tournament, that will make us feel good that we just went out there and ground it out, put our heads together and figured out how to catch a few.”
Martin comes into the event with over two decades of competitive fishing under his belt. Contrast that to Willis’ tournament debut, and it’s a clear how the voice of experience will help steady the ship.
While this is Martin’s first redfish tournament, he said he’s comfortable with the transition.
“I’m making the exact same cast I would for bass; same bait — ChatterBait, swimbait, jigs, things like that,” Martin said. “The whole time I’m redfishing, I’m thinking like a bass. Even though redfish don’t set up like a bass, they don’t set up on dropoffs like bass do, there is some similarity to how they react to lures, and that’s very comfortable to me.”
As a pro guide in Pensacola, Fla., Willis has considerably more redfish experience, but he said he appreciates what his partner brings to the table: “Fishing with Scott has been awesome. He’s taken a lot of stuff from the bass world and thrown it in with our redfish knowledge. It’s amazing how much of that stuff (integrates).”
