January 2024 Martinez
President’s Perspective
The Midweek Bass Anglers completed their first tournament of the year, which was held in the swiftly moving waters of the lower Colorado River at Lake Martinez. The field was comprised of 25 boats, with the largest sack of fish being caught by Laron Porter and Joseph Edgett coming on at 25.26 pounds with a 6.06 lb. kicker!
Also, a shout out to Jeff Stone and Ernie Melcher with their 7.68 pound toad to lead the year with big fish honors. Congratulations boys!
I also wish to thank those who decided to bring their boat in order to get everyone on the water. Next month we return to Bartlett Lake, which most are very familiar with. Register for the tournament online and register early. See you soon.
This month was the annual awards banquet. We had a great turn-out and a great new venue. The award winners are listed below. And, to top that off, the raffle prizes were outstanding. We look forward to the next banquet.
I want to encourage the teams to have their photos taken after weigh-in. It only takes a minute. This month we had Jim Duel taking the photos. He actually ended up taking short videos instead of still photos. The videos are available for download at here.
Editor’s Comments
This month was the annual awards banquet. We had a great turn-out and a great new venue. The award winners are listed below. And, to top that off, the raffle prizes were outstanding. We look forward to the next banquet.
I want to encourage the teams to have their photos taken after weigh-in. It only takes a minute. This month we had Jim Duel taking the photos. He actually ended up taking short videos instead of still photos.
Awards Banquet
Angler of the Year
Laron Porter
First Place Boater
Bryan Colby
No Photo of Bryan
First Place Co-Angler
Keith Weidert
Lunker of the Year 9.15lbs
Vern Ridgway
Second Place Boater
Manny Madrid
Third Place Boater
John Hilland
Third Place Co-Angler
Douglas Moore
Martinez January 2024 Tournament Results and Winners’ Reports
The inputs are somewhat disappointing since 5 boaters or 20% of the field chose to not share their information. Fortunately, the CO-anglers were more willing to share, but we still had some boats with no report at all.
Sharing information is a key part of being a member of Mid-Week Bass!
FIRST PLACE (25.26#) &
First Place Big Fish (6.06#)
Laron Porter and Joseph Edgett
Joseph Edgett: Wow! What can I say; my first tournament with Midweek Bass, drawing the AOY 2023 Laron Porter, and finishing in 1st place. Can it get any better than that?
I want to thank Laron Porter, my boater, for a great day. It was a true pleasure fishing with him. I must say I learned a lot. Laron told me “you don’t go looking for fish when you are on biting fish” and boy were we on fish.
Laron yo-yo’ed a chatter bait and I burned a Rat-L-Trap most of the day. Finding the green grass and hitting the hardwood was key. We had our limit and were culling fish by noon.
A special thanks to the Midweek staff for the launching help and weigh-in crew. It was a great experience and I look forward to the next tournament on Bartlett Lake.
SECOND PLACE (13.92#)
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can Ernie Melcher and Jeffrey Stone
Jeffrey Stone: First I'd like to congratulate Laron and his partner for finishing 1st.
After battling with the flu I wanted to fish this lake really bad. So when I called Ernie to chat about our game plan, I asked him when he was going down and he told me he lived in Yuma. I was excited that he new the lake and where to fish. He said he knows where the fish are, you just have to catch them.
I guess I held up my end and put 3 good size bass in the live well, and his seven pounder helped enough to get us a second place finish.I had a great time fishing with him and learning that lake.
THIRD PLACE (11.66#)
Bill Briggs and Mike Seibly
Mike Seibly: I would like to start off by thanking my fishing partner Bill Briggs, a great gentleman and a darn good fisherman.
We pre-fished on Monday and we went to a spot where Bill said he had his best luck. It was one of the small lakes off the main river. On Monday we we caught 4 one on each bait, spinner bait, senko , jerk bait and hula grub.
Tuesday we tried a lot of different areas and Bill caught one fish early in the morning and that was it for the day.
So the plan for Wednesday was that Bill had some areas that most of the other boats in the club couldn’t get back into. Our plan was to go check those out first and then go to our spot where we caught the fish on Monday.
We couldn’t find any fish back in those spots so about 10 am we went back to our “fishing hole”.
We were there for a few minutes and I caught one on a baby brush hog. About 20 minutes later I got a nice one on a spinner bait. We fished for a while and Bill picked up two on a power worm.
That left us 2.5 hours to get the last fish for our limit. We just keep working our area back and forth trying to get that last fish. Here’s the best part. I hooked a submerged tree with my spinner bait. When I finally got my spinner bait loose it came with a chatter bait on someone else’s line.
About 20 minutes later Bill tied that chatter bait on his line and a few casts later caught our 5th and biggest fish. We didn’t know if we would place but we were really happy we got our limit after days of touch fishing.
I would like to thank the board members of the club for all they do. Mid-Week Bass Anglers is a great organization with a bunch of great members. It’s one of the many reasons I love Arizona.
FOURTH PLACE (11.39#)
Vern Ridgway and Kim Braly
Vern Ridgway: Kim Braly and I teamed up to fish this Bad Boy Martinez. Monday was spent just looking for likely places to fish. it all looks good! We settled on Ferguson.
We worked hard the first 2 hours of the tournament with only one small keeper that went for a jerk bait . We moved out to deeper water looking for points and humps that might hold some pre-Sooners; got into 3 fish on the outer structure and we spent the rest of the day looking for number 5, Kim caught our 5th fish in the late afternoon. That was it for the rest of the day! The fish came on jigs, 3/8 size, with a crawdad trailer. 5 bites, 5 fish and that was the end of story and tournament.
Tip of the hat to our weight crew; another fine job and Midweek staff; great job guys. Congrats to our champs with a very impressive bag of fish!
FIFTH PLACE (11.11#)
Roger Williams and Bryan Colby
Bryan Colby: Another well run tournament, start boat got us out fast and weigh in went great. Fun day with Roger, its always great meeting new guys in the club.
Made a couple of casts on Tuesday with a swim-bait and caught a nice one so saved that bite till tournament day. Tuesday night I retired every rod I brought but only threw a 4 in swim-bait all day. Our 4 fish all came off those little swim-baits.
Congratulations to Laron and Joseph for the whooping they put on the rest of us.
Roger Williams: Thank you to everyone that participated, planned, and help make this a great tournament. I arrived on Monday and when I took my boat out of the water, we found that one of my leaf springs on the trailer had broken. Several members of the club including Floyd and Manny were quick to stop and offer help. Floyd even got under the trailer to help rig and re-bolt the spring so we could continue to fish and make it home afterwards. What a great club with a great bunch of guys!
On Tuesday Bryan and I located backwater with lots of fish, so we went there to start the tournament. We were able to get 7 bites there. We lost 2 and one was short by an 1/8th of an inch. The bite shut off after an hour around 10.30 AM. We left with only 4 fish in the boat.
Our next spot was a bust and we headed for the dam. We got one good fish there on drop-shot, but it broke off against the net. Still needing a 5th fish, we went to the boat docks inside of Martinez. With 20 minutes left, we had our fifth fish on, but it came unglued before we could get it to the boat. We caught all the fish we landed on 4 inch swim baits.
SIXTH PLACE (10.52#) & Goon Fish (8.42# Carp)
Charles Mackintosh and Jim Pfeiffer
Charles Mackintosh: Congratulations to Laron and Joseph on their massive bag and to Ernie and Jeff on their big bass!
For many of us the fishing was tough and the navigation was hazardous. I had the pleasure of being paired with Jim Pfeiffer.
On Monday we checked Martinez Lake, Squaw Lake, Senator’s wash and the area around Hidden Cove all the way to the south. We had five bites, one on a drop shot, two on a lipless crank and two on a swim-bait, including a nice 3 lb. fish Jim caught. On Tuesday we had three bites on Ferguson, two on a drop shot and one on a lipless crank.
Tournament morning, we started on a small point in Martinez and almost immediately I caught one on a craw patterned lipless crank. Shortly after our second fish came on the same bait. The fish felt better and headed straight toward a buoy to get hung up but then swam out where Jim netted our biggest bass of the day. After another dozen casts with the lipless, I changed to a shallow running crank in the same pattern and threw on the point. The point felt nice and rocky and soon we had our third fish. A few minutes later our fourth fish came on the same bait. It was 8:15 am and we had the rest of the day to move around and get our fifth fish. Not so easy.
Finally, around 2 pm I had a bite on the lipless crank and I could tell it was a big fish. The initial excitement soon faded as we realized it was a carp, but at least it looked like a good candidate to win goon fish. Jim did a great job netting the almost 8.5 lb. fish.
Nearby Jack Hughes and Brian Presmyk were kind enough to verify the catch and weight for us, and that was our last bite of the day. Fortunately, we were in the right place at the right time first thing in the morning to bag four decent bass.
Thanks to the tournament crew for running a smooth tournament.
SECONG BIG FISH (8.78#)
Don Worcester
Don Worcester: First of all congratulations to Laron and Joe. You guys really ran away with this one !! Thanks to all the weigh in crew for keeping it running smoothly. I was fishing with Michael Edgar and I know in the picture I am holding up our two big fish, but he did all the catching. I did a great job of netting. !
He caught all the fish on crank baits, we never got another bite all day. I tried everything I had in my tackle bag to no avail.
Michael did our good deed for the day, he towed in Jack Hughs when his battery went down and jumpers wouldn't work. I( really was a great tournament . Just a word to other co's, Michael is a great guy to fish with.
