Drew Gill captured his second big win of the year in fine style. Photo by Rob Matsuura.
By Jody White
Tackle Warehouse Press Release
LEESBURG, Fla. – Drew Gill kicked off the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by MillerTech season the same way he kicked off the Bass Pro Tour season – with a superlative win and a $100,000-plus payday. In the first few weeks of the fishing season, the young superstar has now won two national-level events, and consequently leads in Angler of the Year points on both of MLF’s top circuits.
This week in Stop 1 Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches on the Harris Chain, Gill had a killer game plan for big bites and weighed three fish over 8 pounds on the week. After catching three for an even 21 pounds on Day 1, Gill took a big lead on Day 2 with a 19-4 limit and closed with an even 26 pounds (including an 8-pounder and a 9-pounder) for a dominating 66-4 total. Gill topped Brody Campbell by nearly 18 pounds and weighed either the biggest or second-biggest bag every day of the event. For the win, Gill pocketed $100,500 and also qualified for REDCREST in 2027, which is at least a level of insurance for the BPT standout.
To catch his fish, Gill showed off a master game plan and did what he does best at a level nobody else could touch.
A fine-tuned approach
Fishing for suspended, offshore fish in Beauclair, Gill wasn’t in areas that had never seen boats before, and he wasn’t using baits that had never been employed there before. He did what nobody else in the field could do, though.
The Pro Circuit field is not lacking in exceptional offshore anglers or anglers skilled with forward-facing sonar – in fact, Bobby Bakewell and Aaron Yavorsky both have some major success on the Harris Chain, and major skills with the beam. Banks Shaw made the Top 50 cut, as well as Alec Morrison, two modern pros will a full skill set and winners of the last two Pro Circuit AOY awards. Through it all, Gill fished at a level that was a cut – or maybe two cuts, even – above his competition.
One of Gill’s big keys was an umbrella rig, with caught all his fish over 8 pounds, and which he was more committed to than any other angler.
“When I showed up here, the water was 48 degrees in the lake I started in,” he said. “That’s ridiculously cold, and a cold bass is a cold bass. A cold bass has always, will always, eat an A-rig. The first fish I threw it at was almost a 6-pounder. From there, I kept it in my back pocket, ordered a bunch and had it ready.
“The big, big ones just would not respond to the minnow,” he said. “I caught three over 8 on the week, and all of them bit the A-rig. That was the ticket. When the water is so dirty, you need something that has drawing power to make it worth it. And when they’re suspended, they don’t generally want to go to the bottom.”
On Day 1, Gill caught about half the fish he saw. He caught about a quarter of the fish he saw on Day 2, and nearly a third of the fish he saw on Day 3. A slightly worse catch rate might have seen him battling instead of cruising, or maybe, in the sort of situation that Yavorsky ended up in, catching big ones but never enough of them.
“Using ‘Scope, fishing offshore for suspended fish in Florida, it comes down to fish identification and understanding your approach,” he said. “Picking your approach is really important. With an A-rig, the big thing is you’ve got about 6 inches of metal in front of those swimbaits. You’ve got a lot of ‘not look so good’ that is in front of the part you want them interested in. Picking your cast right to make sure the first thing they engage with is not the front of the rig, but the back of it, is super important. Being very meticulous about how I approached those big, big ones was very important. Those giant ones didn’t want to bite anything else.”
Gill used a YUM YUMbrella Flash Mob Jr. rig with 3 1/2-inch swimbaits – on two screwlocks, two 1/8-ounce heads and a 1/16-ounce head. He threw it on 25-pound Seaguar Tatsu and never had an issue handling any of the giants he hooked. Gill also caught some fish on a 4.8-inch Big Bite Baits Spotlight Minnow on a 1/8-ounce head, as well as several key fish on 3/8- and 1/2-ounce ChatterBaits.
Gill ran Kissimmee grass edges with the ChatterBait, which put key fish in the boat on the last two days. It continued his trend of mastering whatever forward-facing sonar bite exists on competition waters, and then figuring out the rest of the gameplan.
“I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out in practice,” he said. “I tried to figure it out in the tournament. The first day, I ran too much, I fished too little. I think on the Harris Chain right now it is an efficiency deal. I regrouped and just got on the trolling motor on the edge of the Kissimmee grass and put that ChatterBait in my hand, and I got meaningful bites on it the last two days.”
“I didn’t have a backup plan”
Fishing the Pro Circuit is an important avenue for Gill to win money and promote his sponsors, but it’s also a lot of fun for the young pro. He’s willing to take risks he might not on the Bass Pro Tour, and this week showed that off. He didn’t chase some sort of moonshot plan. He never went to a limit hole and AOY points never crossed his mind.
“There weren’t a lot of bites to be had this week on the Harris Chain,” Gill said. “The only way to overcome that was to do it on really big fish. It’s really hard to intentionally manufacture three 8-plus bites, but I knew I was around big ones this week. There were a couple places in Dora where I knew I could go catch some fish, but I never bailed to them; I spent every minute of my ‘Scope period looking for big ones, and it worked out.
“This was a big risk, but it was a big risk because it wasn’t a likely positive outcome,” he said. “They were kind of unpredictable. They didn’t have a pattern of where they would go; it’s really wind susceptible, there were a lot of variables that could have destroyed it. The beauty of five-fish tournaments with a high-risk pattern is when you only have one idea, you commit. I didn’t have a backup plan.”
On Day 3, Gill had it wrapped up early, maybe when he caught his first 8-pounder, definitely when he caught his 9-pounder. And with it, he added yet another accolade to his already overflowing résumé.
“It’s a hard place to win and this was an incredible field of anglers,” he said. “I’m ecstatic. The fact that this happens, that it continues to happen, it baffles me.”
Top 10 pros
1. Drew Gill – 66 – 4 (13) – $100,000
2. Brody Campbell – 48 – 14 (15) – $25,000
3. Aaron Yavorsky – 43 – 3 (9) – $20,000
4. Connor Jacob – 42 – 12 (15) – $18,000
5. Keith Poche – 39 – 13 (15) – $17,000
6. Jared Lintner – 39 – 4 (15) – $16,000
7. Chad Mrazek – 36 – 15 (14) – $15,000
8. Broderick Luckey – 36 – 11 (14) – $14,000
9. Marshall Robinson – 36 – 4 (15) – $13,000
10. Ryan Lachniet – 36 – 3 (15) – $12,000
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