Inside BASS: Martin-Wells Eagerly Awaits Inaugural Women’s Bassmaster Tour Championship
CELEBRATION, Fla. – Pam Martin-Wells is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished active female tournament anglers in the world. The Georgia pro has secured Angler of the Year titles three times on various circuits, won multiple national tournaments and captured the Mercury Marine Women’s Bassmaster Tour presented by Triton Boats preview event in October 2005.
Still, for Martin-Wells, nothing compares to the upcoming Women’s Bassmaster Tour Championship set for Alabama’s Lake Mitchell Feb. 22-24 during Bassmaster Classic week.
“Qualifying for the first ever Women’s Bassmaster Championship is almost indescribable,” the 43-year-old said. “It’s going to be an awesome event. I’m extremely excited. The crowd and the opportunity to be on stage with all the people and everything around — it’s going to be awesome. I really don’t know how to describe it.”
The WBT pros will share the Classic stage with the 50 Classic contenders in Birmingham on the WBT championship’s final day of competition.
Martin-Wells has been to past Classics as a spectator, including the 2006 edition in Kissimmee, Fla., and has allowed herself to dream about crossing the Classic stage.
“To walk on that stage in front of all those people, the excitement is something a lot of us have wanted to do for a long time,” she said. “When I watch the Bassmaster Classic on TV or even a commercial for it, I get goose bumps. This is such a big deal that I hope I just don’t pass out.”
This veteran angler and long-time guide on Georgia’s Lake Seminole is a fan of the Coosa River lakes, which includes Lake Mitchell. She expects that a number of patterns could play a role during the championship event.
“I think Mitchell is a wonderful fishery,” she said. “It’s a very versatile and well-rounded lake. You can fish shallow; you can fish deep. It’s pretty much got anything an angler can ask for.”
The 2007 WBT season will kick off before the championship event, Feb. 8-10 on Texas’ Lake Amistad. Martin-Wells is looking forward to the second season of the now established tour.
“The first year was probably actually a little bit better than what I expected,” she said. “Unlike some of the circuits in the past we gained a lot of press coverage and publicity, which is, of course, what the sport needs to grow, and the women’s side of it needs to grow. So it was a great year.”
MORE WBT NEWS. Speaking of publicity, the February issue of Spirit, the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines, will feature a story on the WBT.
The magazine teased the story in its January issue with a two-page spread titled “Fishing Goes Co-Ed,” which featured a giant bass, a photo of WBT pro Kimberlee Striker of Alabama and the following copy block:
“Until this year, practically the only sports that lacked professional women’s championships were football and bass fishing. Now you can scratch bass fishing. In late February, women will gather in America’s bass capital, Birmingham, Ala., for the first-ever women’s championship. The top dozen female anglers will compete in a four-day fish-off on Lake Mitchell. The women join the Super Bowl of fishing, the Bassmaster Classic, which culminates the season of one of America’s fastest growing spectator sports.”
PURE FISHING PROS. BASS sponsor Pure Fishing recently added two new Bassmaster Elite Series anglers to its pro team.
Pros Preston Clark and John Crews will represent several of Pure Fishing’s product lines in 2007.
“Pure Fishing and I have agreed to a multi-year agreement for me to promote Berkley soft plastics, Berkley fishing lines, Abu Garcia, and Fenwick,” Crews said. “I am pumped about many aspects of this deal. I grew up fishing Berkley lines and they continue to stay on top of the latest line technology.”
WRAP RAP. The Moose will be on the loose during the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2007.
Second-year Elite pro Jon Bondy will be running a boat wrapped in the logo and colors of Moose Tracks, a brand of ice cream products owned by Denali Flavors, Inc., one of the nation’s leading inventors and marketers of specialty flavors in its industry.
“Denali Flavors/Moose Tracks is proud to support Jon in this 11-event series, and we look forward to increased brand awareness through this partnership,” said Denali founder Wally Blume, an avid bass angler and BASS member in his own right. “Just as this group of 100 anglers is recognized as the best in the world, Moose Tracks Ice Cream is recognized as a leader in the ice cream industry.”
The partnership marks Denali Flavor’s first entrée into the professional sports sponsorship arena.
“I’m grateful to Denali Moose Tracks for coming together with my long-time sponsors to support my quest for even higher success at this level,” said Bondy, the lone Canadian on the Elite Series. “I am confident that this year’s results will be even better than last for the Bondy team.”
DID YOU KNOW? Out of six total to qualify for the 2007 Bassmaster Classic, Tom Hamlin is the lone Bassmaster Tour contender who has experienced the Classic in the past. The Lizella, Ga., angler finished 25th in the 2003 Classic.
IF I HADN’T BECOME A BASS PRO… Derek Remitz, a first-time Classic qualifier and rookie on the 2007 Elite Series, might still be working on the family sod farm in Minnesota. “It was hard work, but I kind of just got born into it,” he said. “We would go out and cut it every day and ship it out. But making the sod grow every day was the No. 1 agenda. All together we have about 1,300 acres.”
THEY SAID IT. “I read somewhere that Takahiro (Omori) keeps a list taped to the lid of his rod box that he looks at every morning. One of the things [on the list] is, ‘Don’t listen to dock talk.’ I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.” Elite Series pro Preston Clark looks to improve his overall performance in 2007.