River Fishing On Lake Martinez
By Heidi Roth
Editor - Inside Line
July 21, 2009
Reprinted from Sep/Oct ’07 Inside Line
Approximately thirty-five miles north of Yuma, AZ and nearly hidden in the hot desert sand, lies Lake Martinez – a jewel of a fishery. The primary river of the American Southwest, the Colorado River’s headwaters begin in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park and end up some 9,000 feet below at the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean. It goes without saying there are many excellent fishing opportunities along the Colorado. One spot in particular that I would never have guessed could produce such fantastic fishing is Lake Martinez.
Fed by the northern Davis and Parker Dams, Lake Martinez (and its surrounding channels and backwaters) is not a large body of water and it is highly pressured by pleasure boaters and anglers alike on a daily basis in the summer. The swift current of the main river channel makes the fish extra feisty and extra fun to catch!
Professional tournament angler Gary Key of Phoenix, Arizona told me so one day on the phone. After giving me some details on a recent tournament success on Lake Martinez, he encouraged me to come down and check the place out. I took him seriously and three weeks later, in the heat of the summer, I was on-board as we idled out of Lake Martinez Resort in his Ranger.
Even in early June Lake Martinez is super hot and the water is shallow and clear, which can cause most anglers to avoid a lake like this in the heat of Summer. Theoretically, the fish should be deep and suspended and not interested much in eating. But the current at Lake Martinez is king and turns the place on. There’s no such thing as post-spawn hum-drums down here!
Gary recommends going for the bamboo in backwaters during pre-spawn, spawn and post-spawn. Bamboo in the backwaters grows near sand and rock which are key spawning areas for bass. The bulrush and reeds, which grow on silt and sand, are better areas for summer backwater tactics. There are typically more baitfish in these areas due to the soft current flow coming in and out of the backwaters.
The main river channel is also a great area for summertime bassin’, with the better cover in the current being overhanging bamboo. The bamboo in the main river channel offers a lot of shade and protection for the bass as they ambush prey, and the bamboo is typically near the deeper water. Gary likes to punch the river bamboo with a one-ounce tungsten weight, and a Yamamoto Big Ika.
As a kid, Gary spent his summers fishing the Lower Colorado River system and admits he feels at home here. “I’m so comfortable here I’ll use this place as a testing ground for new products and new techniques I need to try on other bodies of water. What’s great is that these techniques will usually produce fish here as well!”
“These fish are heavily pressured and so it just makes sense to show them something unique whenever I can – I’m always looking for an edge.” In retrospect, I realized Gary was trying to prepare me for two-days of off-beat fishing. I saw some things that most people wouldn’t believe, but I have photographic evidence to prove it. If you’re really into catching some quality fish on Lake Martinez, you can’t be afraid of skinny backwater channels or of getting all tangled up in bamboo.
The Main River Channel vs. Backwater
As we ran downriver to his first spot, Gary admitted that while most guys like to fish the strong current of the main channel (and win tournaments doing so), he’s drawn more to the softer “secondary” current of the backwaters. “I’m less pressured by other anglers, I don’t have to fight the current and the boat wakes, and some of the fish in these backwater lakes haven’t seen a boat or lure in months!” Admittedly, he doesn’t get as many bites fishing the backwater as he would if he fished the main current, but the bites he does get are quality.
Most guys flip the bamboo on the main river channel which can be productive. “Current is key and you’ll definitely get current fishing along the main channel, but you’ll also get lots of boat traffic and burn your batteries up pretty quickly if you’re fishing against the current,” he shares. “It can be frustrating out there fighting two-foot waves from pleasure boaters and fighting current at the same time”.
Maybe the fish hadn’t seen a boat in a few months, but that didn’t keep Gary from being extra cautious as we squeezed our way back into a tight channel that would lead us into an open backwater. Making long casts in gin-clear water toward the opening of a small lake as we slowly worked our way down the channel kept us from spooking the fish. But there was a Catch 22: making long casts means you sometimes sacrifice hook-sets. “My ratio of hooksets when making long casts drops,” Gary admits, “but if they really want it, you’re not gonna miss the bite!”
Another advantage to fishing backwaters is that the fish in these locations will roam – they’re not locked onto a small section of cover so much as in the main river channel. Bluegill and crawdads are the main diet of bass on Lake Martinez, so if you see small bluegill, there will be bass around. The stripers pretty much eat up all the shad.
Frogman
Gary likes to frog fish…a lot. After spending most of the morning chunking a River2Sea Croaker Frog (and doing pretty dandy!), I figured he’d start throwing something different now that the sun was pretty much straight overhead. Occasionally, as we worked our way 
through really tight channels, he would use a punch-bait to flip the nearly impenetrable reeds and bamboo, but as soon as the water would start to open up, his punch bait rods would hit the deck and the frog was soon sailing through the air.
“I’ll throw a frog all day long,” admitted Gary after he released a lovely little 3.5-pound bass caught in the mouth of a backwater pond. “I know most guys will fish it in the morning and later in the afternoon, but I’ve been productive with it all day long. It’s very hard for me to put down!”
He does have to change up a little (as far as presentation of the frog is concerned) during the middle part of the day. We’d been finding the fish in the shade most of the morning, and with the sun now straight over-head, that meant the only shade was inside the tules and bulrush.
I may have mumbled something like, “Fat chance,” the first time I saw him flip his frog into a particularly nasty mess of bulrush because he turned to me and explained, “No really, a frog bait is so much more forgiving when it gets chunked into this junk, more so than other flipping baits. An errant cast can easily turn into a good cast – I can shake it out of the reeds much easier than a jig and have it fall right into the strike zone. Plus, the fish in this dense cover aren’t used to seeing a topwater bait.” I couldn’t really respond; I was grabbing the camera again to capture another hookset.
Equipment
Gary uses four techniques to effectively catch fish all day long on Lake Martinez. For fishing the open backwater areas, he likes to throw River2Sea Frogs and various swimbaits. For flipping the tules and bamboo, he’ll switch up to heavier punch-baits: particularly the Yamamoto Big or Fat Ika and Kreature baits with a one ounce River2Sea tungsten weight called a ‘Trash Bomb’.
Gary uses a Dobyns 736C and a Dobyns 766FLIP rod with 65-pound braided line for his frogs and punch-baits. Heavy Spiderwire Braid (50 to 65-pound test) is key when Gary is fishing current, making long casts and fishing “junk” but he’ll switch up to 16 to 25-pound Sugoi line when he’s fishing Yamamoto Senkos, Spinnerbaits and Pepper Jigs. He’ll use these baits in backwater pockets, not current, so the lighter line is fine.
His reel of choice is a 7:1 gear ratio for fast retrieves. It’s necessary to take up line fast to get the bait back into the target zone quickly.
Basically, this means that there isn’t a second that Gary doesn’t have a bait in the water because even as he’s trolling on high from one tule point to the next, he’s covering the open water with the Rover and the swimbait or spinnerbait. Those fish didn’t stand a chance.
The Relentless Pursuit
Spending two days on the water with Gary, it was clear to me that his love of fishing, developed early in his childhood, has not diminished, even as he works toward making professional tournament fishing a full-time pursuit for himself and his family.
While we still produced fish mid-day on both days, it did slow down a bit and I had the chance to speak with Gary about his goals and just how serious he is about taking his wife and six children (yeah, that’s right – six!) on the road with him. “It was my wife, Lorie, who got me seriously thinking about pursuing my dream of fishing full-time and so we began to formulate a serious time-table to make it happen – we call it our ‘relentless pursuit’.” The plan was that his first committed year he would fish the BASS Federation as a boater and the FLW Stren series as a non-boater. This allowed him to gain experience without breaking the bank.
But is it really possible to pursue this type of lifestyle with a wife and six kids in tow? “My children are home-schooled and fishing is a huge part of our entire family’s life.” Gary responded. “Actually, when I begin to fish full-time my family will be able to travel with me and we’ll have the opportunity to be together more than we are now. Currently, I work a full-time job and traveling to tournaments means I don’t get to see them as often as I want to.”
Gary and his wife have gone about this slowly and seriously, and I’ll bet they can make it work. He admitted, “I think what makes me try so hard to be successful at this and to really take it seriously is because I’ve got such a great support team – my family!”
Toward the end of the second day, I’ll admit I was a bit bummed we hadn’t caught many Senko fish (I do work for Yamamoto ya’ know – can’t help liking our product best!). Gary had shown me his special take on a wacky-rigged Senko which he called a “float-n-fly” (a bait he reserves for missed frog-fish), but it hadn’t produced like I had hoped. I’ll admit I was skeptical of the rig. Gary likes this rig because it keeps the Senko suspended above the grass.
Toward the end of day two, we headed back to our first stop from day one. Gary saw a big bass at the mouth of a backwater lake but she’d seen us first and was a bit spooked. He’d thrown his float-n-fly Senko at her but she was unmoved, un-phased by the quivering GYCB offering. I was 
heartbroken, but Gary encouraged me, “We’ll get her to go tomorrow when I can sneak up on her, you wait and see!”
At the entrance to the little lake again, he tossed the float-n-fly Senko rig out slightly past the corner reeds. She came through those tules like a torpedo and slammed that poor Senko halfway into next week. The bright orange float was barely visible underwater as it raced off for deeper water…I nearly fell out of the boat trying to snap pictures, whooping and hollering as she flashed and thrashed, the big toad was leaping out of the water in the most un-lady-like fashion.
She was a big girl, too; an eight-pounder and the biggest fish of the trip. I have a feeling Gary saved her for last on purpose. Hot and sweaty and tired (yet so satisfied), we idled back to the launch-ramp. I plan on going back soon.