KVD takes fan vote for Classic victory away from Martens

Kevin VanDam has unseated Aaron Martens but not Edwin Evers in our entirely non-scientific polls on who will win the 2016 GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by GoPro on Oklahoma’s Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees.

Even super-scientific polling didn’t predict the Iowa caucuses correctly, so we skipped the scientific part and went straight to our fans on Facebook and Twitter.

In two weeks of polling, Martens has led the pack on Twitter and Evers on Facebook. But then we added VanDam into the bracket-style voting, and he got the edge — on Twitter. On Facebook, Evers fans clung tightly to their guy.

Let me back up a little bit. We’ve been pitting four anglers against each other on a daily basis on both platforms. Then, once a week, we put the daily winners head-to head.

In the first week, it was Martens and Evers, and it was a repeat in the second week.

On to the third …

We started with this matchup: John Crews, David Walker, Kevin VanDam and Randy Howell. VanDam won both polls. On Twitter, he got 62% of the vote, and on Facebook, 57%.

“With the jerkbait in play, it’s hard to beat KVD,” said Coy Greathouse on Facebook.

On the second day, we put out these four: Chad Pipkens, Micah Frazier, Russ Lane and Ott DeFoe. DeFoe won both surveys, with 57% of the vote on Twitter and 63% on Facebook.

The third day, we matched up Brett Hite, Todd Faircloth, Boyd Duckett and Josh Bertrand. Faircloth won both, 46% on Twitter and 69% on Facebook.

“The hardest one to pick!” said @fishingwithDom on Twitter.

So we pitted the three clear winners — VanDam, DeFoe and Faircloth — against the leaders in their respective platforms, Martens on Twitter and Evers on Facebook.

Martens had received tons of support on Twitter, with fans like Elliott Atkinson, @ElliottVision1, commenting the following on polls where Martens wasn’t even a choice: “Look, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. It’s going to be Aaron Martens.”

But still, the man Martens had come in runner-up to on the Classic stage twice in real life beat Martens again in polls.

VanDam earned 49% of the vote. Martens got 35%.

On Facebook, though, Evers pickers stood by their man. Evers got 55% and VanDam only 25%.

“It still will be Evers,” said Nick Griffith on Facebook. “He wants this one too bad.”

We’ve got one week left of voting. Have your say on Twitter or in the Bassmaster Fantasy Fishing group on Facebook.