For nearly a year, St. Croix Bassmaster Opens anglers expected to finish the 2024 season at Lake Hartwell. However, with the damage caused by Hurricane Helene in the western part of South Carolina, tournament officials were forced to move the tournament to Lake Martin in Alabama.
An abrupt change to the schedule is far from ideal for everyone involved, but the magnitude of the situation is amplified by the fact that this is the final event of the season where nine Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers will punch their ticket to the Bassmaster Elite Series.
While the news might have come as a shock to the Opens anglers at first, there was no time to dwell on the negatives. Instead, it was time to turn the page and start working on a game plan for Lake Martin.
Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster EQ points leader Easton Fothergill is choosing to view this change as a positive.
“Even though I spent time pre-practicing at Lake Hartwell, I was actually pretty excited to hear the news,” said Fothergill. “With the off limits immediately going into effect after the announcement, it made me realize that this will be the most even playing field event of the entire season.”
In his time fishing at the University of Montevallo, Fothergill spent only a couple of days fishing Lake Martin. So map study and tackle preparation were his main focus heading into practice.
“I’ve spent a ton of time on Google earth since the tournament was announced,” he said. “In the very little time I’ve spent on Martin I’ve learned the bigger fish tend to live shallow all year. I tried to find rockpiles, ditches or anything different on the bank to give me a good place to start in practice.”
Other anglers like Paul Marks, who currently sits in sixth in EQ points, were devastated to hear that Lake Hartwell wouldn’t be the final destination of the season.
“I had really been looking forward to the Hartwell event all season,” said Marks. “I’ve never fished Martin before so I did a lot of map study. Once I got started with practice, I realized that it sets up and looks a lot like Hartwell and Lake Lanier.
“At the end of the day, they’re spotted bass and they chase bait, so it’s pretty similar fishing. It’s much harder to catch a better-quality fish here though.”
Currently tied for ninth in EQ points with Alabama’s Matt Adams is Beau Browning. Needing a good finish to slide inside the Elite Series, the Arkansan is taking a positive approach into the final Open of the year.
“I was kind of bummed to begin with because I pre-practiced Hartwell, but once I looked at things in the bigger picture it put everything into perspective,” Browning said. “I mean a hurricane came through and did major damage to communities in that part of the country, so there’s bigger things to be worried about.”
Acknowledging the fact there’s not been a ton of pro-level tournaments at Lake Martin in recent history, especially in the fall, the former college angler was excited it would be an even playing field for most every angler in the field.
“It’s a big curveball, and I kind of love it,” he said. “When you take out the ability to pre-practice and combine that with the lack of info from past tournaments, it kind of makes it a bit of an unknown.”
In order to stay sharp before the tournament, Browning made an effort to be on the water as much as possible back in Arkansas.
“I could tell just looking at the lake on the map that it sets up a lot like my home lake of Lake Hamilton,” said the former Montevallo Falcon. “I’ve spent nearly every day up until I came down here on Hamilton. Not because I think that it’s going to fish the exact same, but I just wanted to stay sharp on the types of fishing that I think I’ll be doing.”
With just three days left in the St. Croix Bassmaster Opens season, there’s still so much left to be determined. Luckily, all three days will be broadcast on Bassmaster LIVE.
Be sure to catch all the action on FS1, FS2 and Bassmaster.com.
