Aaron Martens, a three-time Bassmaster Angler of the Year and three-time winner of the prestigious U.S. Open, passed away yesterday, Nov. 4, after a battle with brain cancer. He was 49 years old.
Martens initially honed his fishing skills on famed trophy factory Castaic Lake in southern California, fishing tournaments with his mother, Carol. After a storied career on numerous regional circuits, he qualified for the Bassmaster Top 150 tour through the Bassmaster Western Opens, and subsequently fished on various iterations of that tour, including the Bassmaster Elite Series, from 1999 through 2018. Along the way he qualified for and competed in 20 Bassmaster Classics, finishing in the top 10 on 9 occasions, including four runner-up finishes. At the 2005 Bassmaster Classic in Pittsburgh, he had the winning fish on several times and ultimately fell short of Kevin VanDam’s winning weight by a mere 6 ounces. The following year at Lay Lake he again finished second to VanDam, albeit by a larger margin.
Martens won 9 Bassmaster tournaments, three of them on different waters in his home state of California, as well as in Alabama, Illinois, Arizona, Maryland and New York. At the final win in 2017 on Lake Champlain, he was in 19th, place heading into the final day of competition, but amassed a monstrous catch to leapfrog the other 18 anglers. It is a mark that will likely never be matched or topped in Elite Series competition, since final day fields were then usually limited to 12 anglers, and now consist of 10 qualifiers. During his more than two decades at B.A.S.S. he won over $3 million.
In addition to competing with B.A.S.S., Martens also fished the FLW Tour from 2001 through 2006, and qualified for the Forrest Wood Cup three times. In 2003 he won a tour event on Wheeler Lake and the following year he won at Champlain. He later fished the Major League Fishing made-for-television events, and left B.A.S.S. to compete on the Bass Pro Tour circuit in 2019.
To read more about Aaron Martens’ life and legacy, click here.
