GIMME THE LUTE!

The Lifted Trucks Cactus Cup Team Trail has kicked off the 2023 season with the first event this past Saturday at Fishers, Landing at Martinez Lake. This year was a lot of fun and unlike last year, controversy free. Parks and Wildlife replaced all of the bouys and updated all signage so there was no confusion on where anglers were allowed to fish. We had 41 boats compete this year which was a drop compared to 69 boats last season. There were two tournaments scheduled on the same day, but over all it was a successful event with some great people and a ton of spectators watching with the car show there once again. The past few we have had some monster fish weighed in, but things were different this year. A lot of the anglers had said that there was not much grass in the lake, which is normally not the case here. Despite the grass being tough to find some teams still got the job done with the top 8 teams having over 15lb plus bags. Below we have some feedback from our top 4 teams along with the results and payouts for the event.

1st Place – Jacob and Keith Lute

Jacob and Keith Lute, a local Father & Son team out of Yuma had a great day on the water taking the win by just under a pound. Jacob had this to say about their day. ” The day started off pretty fast for us, we caught five fish early in the morning on reaction baits over grass beds. We then proceeded to hit rock points with reaction bites and picked up a few larger fish. The last hour and half we picked up our jigs and went looking for a big fish and managed to catch a 5.94lb Largemouth. I want to thank Nick and his staff for an excellent job they did. We don’t have many tournaments like this here so it’s definitely a treat. We cant wait for the next one.” Jacob and Keith walked away with $4,460 with a total of 19.81lbs.

2nd Place – Frankie Mueller and Cody Spetz

Frankie and Cody had a solid finish just barley missing the win .81. Frankie had this to say about their day. ” We went into the tournament expecting to throw a trap and crank all day. We caught a small limit first thing in the morning for about 11lbs then we decided to abandon the crank bite and flipped the rest of the day which resulted in our better fish. It was an awesome tournament and we look forward to fishing this same event next year and other FishIn48 events down the road.” Frankie and Cody walked away with $2660 for their 2nd place finish.

3rd Place – Cody Benton and Josh Hodge

Cody had some feedback on their day and what helped them get a 3rd place finish. “We had solid bite in the lakes down river but we weren’t sure how long those would be there. We contemplated flipping the channel at some point which this time of year can be a life or death move but after catching a couple of 4’s in the community lakes behind who knows how many boats we figured it was all timing and placement. The day turned into a constant repetition of cast and wind between traps, square bills, and deep cranks. We thought about finding the kicker in the channel but decided to stick to the lakes. Ultimately we thought we would be top 10 at best but luckily everyone had a tough day we grinded out 17.7lbs for a 3rd place finish.” Cody and Josh took home $1440.00

4th place – Mason Smook and Bobby Bayham

Mason and his dad Rob were last years AOY winners, winning a trip to Baccarac Lake with Pro Bass Adventures. Unfortunately Rob wont be fishing this season due to an injury but Mason and Bobby picked up right where Mason and Rob left off. Mason said, ” We found a good group of fish in one of the few place that had grass on Friday but that was pretty much all we found prior to the tournament so we were boat 8 and I was able to get past a few other teams on the main river and be the second boat into the area, getting optimal position. Fishing was much slower with the clouds but we were able to get 3 solid fish early and some smaller ones. After more boats kept coming in we decided to leave the area about noon to hit the only other place I found fish and it took two hours to get one bite, but it ended up being our biggest fish of the day around 1:30pm. Overall was a tough day but grateful for the bites we got.” Mason and Bobby walked away with $1000 for 4th place.

1st place Big Fish – Craig Johnson & Brenton Lute – 7.03lbs

Craig and Brenton won 1st place big fish and the blue option for a total of $710.00

2nd place Big Fish – Dustin Codner & Derek Richards – 7lbs

Derek and Dustin won 2nd place big fish with a 7lb Largemouth Bass. They took home $100 cash and $500 in gift cards to Liars Korner.

Thanks to everyone that came out for our first event. We paid out 19 spots with cash and prizes and for those that left early their prizes will be held over for the Championship. Make sure at our next even you stick around you never know what you could win. This event we held over Bajio Sunglass, Gift Cards, Ceramic Coating, Apparel, and more. Our next event will be at Bartlett Lake on February 4th, 2023. We will have a cap of 100 boats so make sure you get registered early to hold your spot. Championship Fund is at $820

 

Martinez Lake Results