Masters of the Bass Universe

Aaron Martens has been traveling so much lately, he has to think twice about where he is.

“I’m in Missouri right now, I think,” he said Monday afternoon when reached on his cell phone. “I’ve been through like 20 states in the last week. It’s crazy.”

Martens and his wife Lesley were en route from their home in Castaic to Birmingham, Ala., where they recently bought a second home.

As for the craziness, it’s only beginning. The Citgo Bassmasters Classic is next week and 52 of the world’s top anglers, along with their entourages, are rolling into the Birmingham area.

The three-day event, which begins Thursday, is expected to draw more than 60,000 spectators, some of whom will catch the action live from their boats on sprawling Lay Lake, while others pack the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center for the daily weigh-ins.

It’s considered the Super Bowl of bass fishing. Just qualifying means you’ve reached the top of your game. Winning puts you over the top. You pocket $200,000 (this year’s top prize) but can earn five times that through sponsorships and endorsements.

Martens, a former gas station attendant, will be participating in his fourth consecutive Classic.

His best finish was eighth in 2000, but he would have finished third had his watch been working properly.

He was penalized three pounds for arriving three minutes late for one of the weigh-ins. The mistake cost him $9,500. He now keeps two watches on his boat.

His worst finish was last year, when he floundered for three days on the Louisiana Delta and finished 43rd out of 45 anglers. “I’m much more at home in a reservoir,” he said.

Lay Lake, an impoundment of the Coosa River located about 40 miles from Birmingham, features all types of water and habitat, and very much suits Martens’ finesse style of fishing. He has fished the lake numerous times, most recently in late June, the last time the pros were allowed to fish in advance of the Classic.

“I just crushed ‘em,” he said.

They can “pre-fish” again Tuesday and Wednesday, when, Martens proclaimed, “I’ll be in full Classic mode.”

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Martens is the most successful of three California entries (Robert Lee of Angels Camp in Northern California and Mike O’Shea of Thousand Oaks are the others). He has won numerous tournaments since turning pro in 1988 and has built a reputation as one of the world’s most skilled and intuitive anglers.

“How do I like his style of fishing? I hate it because it’s totally opposite of what I do,” says defending champion Kevin VanDam, an aggressive fisherman who prefers fast-moving lures over plastic worms. “But it’s very effective for him even if it isn’t for others.

“What sets Aaron apart is that he’s very in tune with what’s going on around him. He notices the subtle things the bass tell him by how they’re biting or not biting, and he’s able to make the slightest changes [in presentation] that often turn out to be very productive.”

Whether this will be Martens’ year remains to be seen, but his biggest fan is hoping so.

“On July 27 I have a very significant birthday and I’ll be there right in the front row for the weigh-in,” said Carol Martens, Aaron’s mother and a reputable bass pro herself. “I told Aaron that it would be a real happy birthday for me if he were to win the Classic.”

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Martens is a strong believer in catch and release and says that philosophy is one of the reasons bass are generally bigger in California than anywhere else.

He wishes it would spread east and south, but no such movement is catching on.

“Everybody kills fish. It’s like it was 50 years ago,” Martens says. “Lay Lake is one of the healthiest fisheries I’ve seen, in terms of bait and the number of small bass, but the fishery is hurting because the bass don’t have a chance to grow. They never make it past five pounds. My goal in life is to change all that.”

That may prove harder than winning the Classic.

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VanDam, 34, won last year’s event with a total weight of 32 pounds 5 ounces for three days of five-fish limits. When he was announced as the winner, before a raucous Louisiana Superdome crowd, he said he had never been so nervous.

He’s a lot calmer now. Reached this week at his home in Kalamazoo, Mich., VanDam said that finally winning the Classic, on his 11th attempt, meant as much personally as it did professionally.

“It was the goal I had been shooting for my entire career, so for me it was a tremendous personal accomplishment,” he said. “This is the No. 1 title in our sport. The Classic is the biggest thing we’ve got going for us.”

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The event will be televised live on ESPN2 on July 25-26 from 2-3 p.m. and on ESPN from 4-5 p.m. on July 27.

Bragging Rights

* Redondo Beach: While fishing aboard Redondo Sportfishing’s Betty G last Friday morning, I discovered that bigger, newer and faster do not always mean much.

The boat is small, old and slow. But it is fishy. Fishing first off the Palos Verdes Peninsula and then over a sunken barge only a mile beyond the breakwater, five of us enjoyed one of the most wide-open calico bass bites of the season--while the anglers aboard the other vessels were largely getting skunked.

Capt. Eric Hobday credited the lack of a generator, making the vessel totally silent during stops.

In all, we caught about 70 bass, the largest being a pair of four-pounders by Patrick Friedman, 7, of Torrance.

* San Diego: Charles Brame of Alta Loma won the jackpot aboard San Diego’s Spirit of Adventure recently with a 33.9-pound bluefin tuna.

* Pyramid Lake: The preteen duo of Pedro and Hugo Revera of San Fernando worked together to reel in a 31-pound striped bass.

Fishery Business

Southland anglers can express their views Thursday in regard to various rockfish management options being considered for 2003 by the Pacific Fishery Management Council. A public meeting will be held from 7-10 p.m. at the Department of Fish and Game office at 4665 Lampson Ave., Los Alamitos.

Several species of rockfish--notably bocaccio, canary and yelloweye--are believed to be severely overfished and the new regulations, which will probably be adopted in September, will be highly restrictive.

It’ll Never Fly

The DFG this week issued an advisory asking fishermen to avoid casting near seabirds feeding on fish in the same area, citing the harmful effects hooks and fishing line have on pelicans and gulls.

Such a request is sure to fall on deaf ears in Southern California, where fishermen actually look for and follow birds diving on fish chased to the surface by game fish.

A fair number of birds do get hooked, but for the most part they’re the ones that persistently follow the fishing boats, as sea lions do, diving after bait fish being cast overboard by fishermen.

Rocking the Boat

The August issue of Boating magazine contains the following tidbits the author insists are true: During World War II, Winston Churchill approved a plan to construct aircraft carriers from icebergs; the gimlet cocktail was invented for ships’ officers by a British naval surgeon as a healthier alternative to straight gin; Alexander Graham Bell tried to have the word “ahoy” instead of “hello” adopted as the proper greeting when answering telephones; the first Spanish, English and French vessels to reach America’s shores were captained by Italians.

Winding Up

Tony Hawk’s Gigantic Skatepark Tour, which has been thrilling young crowds around the nation, makes its lone Southern California stop July 26 at 1 p.m. at Magdalena Ecke YMCA in Encinitas.

There is no charge, but the venues have been filling fast.

Among the high-flying athletes: Hawk, Bob Burnquist, Bam Margera, Brian Sumner, Alex Chalmers, Bucky Lasek, Rick Thorne, Mike Vallely, Jesse Fritsch, Shaun White, Willy Santos and Colin McKay.