Drew Gills Wins 2026 Bass Pro Tour B&W Trailer Hitches Stage 1 Presented by Mercury on Lake Guntersville!

By Mitchell Forde

Bass Pro Tour, Press Release

GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. — When he launched his boat onto Lake Guntersville for the Championship Round of B&W Trailer Hitches Stage 1 Presented by Mercury Sunday morning, Drew Gill never considered that he would end the day hoisting his third Bass Pro Tour trophy. 

Gill has been a mainstay in the Top 10 during his young BPT career. This marked his ninth Championship Round appearance in his first 17 events. But after leaning hard on all the productive spots he’d found to make the Knockout and Championship Round cuts, it was the first time he entered the final day thinking he didn’t have a shot to keep pace with the leaders.

“This is the first time I’ve made a Top 10 where I’ve been like, ‘I know it’s not possible tomorrow,’” Gill said. “Because I had burned my ‘Scope stuff. I mean, I caught 150 pounds off one place for the last three days, and they got progressively harder to catch every day. And I couldn’t get a no-‘Scope bite going yesterday to save my life. So, I was like, ‘I’m cooked.’”

Turns out, Gill was still able to use his mastery of forward-facing sonar to stack up weight in a hurry. The 23-year-old boated 20 scorable bass for 53 pounds, 5 ounces in the first period, building a lead of more than 24 pounds over his nearest pursuer. Then, he did just enough to hold off hard charges from Jacob Walker, Jacob Wheeler and others. Walker landed a 6-9 brute right before lines out, but it wasn’t quite enough. Gill’s 82-4 total edged him by 1-5.

The win marks Gill’s third Bass Pro Tour victory and fourth total MLF win and earned him the first $125,000 paycheck of the season. He’s also the early leader in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race, a title he’s coveted since arriving on tour.

Even more important for the hyper-competitive Gill, it broke him out of a streak of near-misses. Since the end of the 2025 regular season, he’s finished second in two Fishing Clash Team Series events as well as the Toyota Series Championship in November, where he missed out a $200,000 win by tiebreaker.

“Man, I just hate coming close and losing,” Gill said. “Money and points aside, how you feel after the tournament is over, I would way rather finish between like third and sixth than I would second. Second is a hard pill. And I knew, with how tight it was getting in the last 20 minutes, I was like, ‘If I don’t win, I’m finishing second.’ I had to not psych myself up that I was going to win mentally, because I knew if I had worked myself up to it and got excited for it and it didn’t happen, I would have been really, really crushed. So it means the world to me.”

Here’s how the Top 10 pros finished the Championship Round:

1. Drew Gill – 82-4 (28)
2. Jacob Walker – 80-15 (20)
3. Jacob Wheeler – 75-4 (22)
4. Zack Birge – 65-12 (19)
5. Banks Shaw – 63-14 (21)
6. Justin Cooper – 49-12 (18)
7. Wesley Strader – 48-8 (17)
8. Mark Daniels Jr. – 44-1 (17)
9. Chris Lane – 37-10 (12)
10. Keith Carson – 36-14 (11)

Complete results

Full Story 

2022 Bassmaster Elite on Harris Chain of Lakes Day 2: Buddy Gross Leaps into Lead!

Canadians: Cory Johnston 19th, Gustafson 42th & Chris Johnston 63rd.

Buddy Gross of Chattanooga, Tenn., is leading after Day 2 of the 2022 SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Harris Chain with a two-day total of 40 pounds, 7 ounces. (Photo by Seigo Saito/B.A.S.S.)

BASS PRESS RELEASE

LEESBURG, Fla. — Regrouping after an early disappointment and then replicating a specific scenario allowed Tennessee pro Buddy Gross to lead Day 2 of the SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Harris Chain with a two-day total of 40 pounds, 7 ounces.

 

After placing third on Day 1 with 22-12, Gross added 17-11 Friday. He will head into Saturday’s semifinal round with a lead of 1-3 over Ray Hanselman, but Gross said reaching this point was no easy task since the pattern he relied on for Day 1 vanished.

 

“Today, I had to work and run a lot of the lakes,” Gross said. “I went to Beauclair, Eustis and I stayed in Harris for a long time today. Yesterday, I stayed in Harris, but today that was not the case.

 

“I don’t know whether it was the cloudiness or they just moved. I think I was catching postspawners and they were schooled up yesterday. Today, I caught one fish off somewhere I could fish yesterday; everything else came off something new.”

 

Since Wednesday’s full moon coincided with a warming trend, many predicted an all-out spawning event. But while some anglers reported finding bass on beds, Gross said the lack of significant spawning activity did not hurt his game plan.

 

“I never do the spawning thing, if I can keep from it,” he said. “I’ll always try to find one or two in case I need them, but I’m not going to go to a tournament and just (focus on) spawning.”

 

Admitting that he was “winging it today,” Gross said he had two keepers at noon, four at 1:45 p.m. and finished his limit at 2:30. Gross held his cards low on that second pattern, but he said he believes it exists in many areas.

 

“I was still throwing reaction baits; I just changed up where and how,” he said. “I think it’s something I can take elsewhere, I just have to move around a little bit more tomorrow.

 

“It’s about a combination of three things. It has to have a little bit of those things for me to get bit. I’ll fish 10 places like that and won’t catch a fish, and then I’ll stop on one and catch three in five casts.”

 

Gross said he’ll begin Day 3 fishing the spots he identified Friday, but he suspects he’ll need to find more. With the field cut from 94 to 47 for Saturday, Gross will be able to fish more aggressively.

 

“Tomorrow I think I’ll be a little more specific and target places where I think I can catch a bigger bite and just swing,” Gross said. “Now, we’re in the Top 47 cut, so I have to try and stay in the Top 10 and that’s going to take some weight tomorrow.”

 

Hailing from Del Rio, Texas, Hanselman, is in second with 39-4. He placed fourth on Day 1 with 22 pounds and gained two spots with Friday’s limit of 17-4

 

Hanselman said success required fast, aggressive presentations that triggered bites. He accomplished that with a Strike King Hybrid Hunter, a rattling crankbait designed for an enticing action and a 5-inch Strike King Shadalicious swimbait.

 

“I rigged the swimbait on a 3/8-ounce belly-weighted hook, and I put a 3/8-ounce bullet weight on the front so I could keep it down and just grind it through that grass,” Hanselman said. “I used an 8-foot Power Tackle moderate swimbait rod for long casts, (efficient) hook sets and the power to rip that bait through the grass.

2017 Walmart FLW Tour Lake Guntersville Day 1: Jay Kendrick Leads with 25-12lbs

Gussy #30, Cory Johnston #32, Chris Johnston #82 & Richardson #98

by Rob Newell 

FLW PRESS RELESE

Kendrick is dangerous here! (Photo: FLW)

In the realm of professional bass fishing we have grassmasters, ledgemasters and timbermasters. But Jay Kendrick of Grant, Ala., is now carving out his own niche in pro fishing: bridgemaster.
On a cold, dreary day one of the season-opening FLW Tour event presented by Lowrance at Lake Guntersville, Kendrick took an impressive early lead with a limit of bass weighing 25 pounds, 12 ounces. Three of his biggest bass came off one of Guntersville’s fabled bridges, which was a surprise to no one.
Kendrick won a Costa FLW Series event in March 2015 fishing the exact same way. Since then, his competitors have had plenty of time to read the coverage and watch footage of his win, but few seem to be able to unlock the bridge mysteries for big bass quite like Kendrick. But that’s the nature of being a “master” of a technique in this sport – other people can see all the pieces of the puzzle, but are not quite sure how to put those pieces together quickly enough in tournament competition.
“I know exactly what I’m looking for around those bridges,” Kendrick says. “I know when I see it on my electronics. I didn’t really even practice on bridges; I just idled them looking for the key ingredients.
“There is a technique to catching those bridge fish that once you figure it out, you can literally go in amongst other boats and make it work,” he adds. “The problem is those other boats get in the way of making the exact presentation needed to trigger a bite.”
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