Winning Pattern: How Gill Mastered Guntersville

Drew Gill says he’s had a love/hate relationship with Lake Guntersville over the years. It’s safe to say he’s patched things up with the Tennessee River reservoir after his triumph at the Bass Pro Tour season opener there last week.

Across the two-day qualifying round, he amassed 117 pounds, 8 ounces with 37 fish, good for 11th place. He caught 23 for 70-14 to finish 7th in the Knockout Round and qualify for the Championship Round, clinching his ninth top-10 finish in 15 BPT events since joining the circuit in 2024.

The 23-year-old from Mount Carmel, Ill., had his best day of the event in the finals, tallying 28 fish for 82-04 to edge Jacob Walker by 1-05 and eclipse the $1 million mark in earnings with Major League Fishing. This is Gill’s third BPT win in just 15 starts and likely the most meaningful since his family was able to attend and witness him catch many of his fish from the shore along the causeway he was targeting each morning.

“There is always recency bias with wins,” he said. “When you win, the money and the trophy and everything, it all means a lot, but what means as much to us is just the high of chasing that exhilaration and that ‘Am I going to do this? I’ve worked so hard and is this going to culminate with a win?’ When it’s line’s out and time to figure out what happened and they give you the thumbs up, it’s like the weight of the world lifting off your shoulders. Chasing that feeling is what it’s all about.

“It’s a storied fishery and if there are places on the list you want to win at, Guntersville is on the short list,” he said. “It’s fishing arguably as good as it ever has.”

But so has Gill, who recalled his experience at the Toyota Series Championship at Grand Lake last November when he and Roger Fitzpatrick both tallied 41-01 over three days, but Fitzpatrick claimed the win (and $250,000 top prize) on a tiebreaker. It was the first time Gill had come up short in a close finish.

“I’d never had a close call like that before,” he said. “Every close I’ve ever had has been in the BPT where I know what’s going on at all times and I know how far behind I am. There’s no suspense. In any five-fish deal I’ve been in, I’ve kind of known going into the (weigh-in) how it was going to go.”

He referenced the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit events at Lake Eufaula and Lake of the Ozarks in 2023 as other tournaments where he was in the hunt, but seemingly knew he was going to fall short.

“I’ve never had to taste a close call and lose until last November,” he added. “It gave me the perspective I was missing. I hadn’t been on the receiving end of that, so this means a lot to me because I had to taste that bitter pill and it took a good week or so to get to where I wasn’t constantly thinking about it.

“So to roll out in event one of the season and prove to myself I can do what I need to do to win, it was huge.”

It also gives him a leg up, albeit small, in the race for the Angler of the Year title. Jacob Wheeler, who has won the last two and four of the last five BPT AOY titles, finished third at Guntersville.

“The biggest accolade we have is AOY, far and away,” Gill said. “To win it, you have to dethrone Wheeler, which is going to be an unbelievably insurmountable task. I have to take it one event at a time because the level of performance you need to beat him is insane. But this is a good start.”

Practice

This was the earliest point on the calendar for a Bass Pro Tour event since the circuit launched in 2019 and Gill was expecting a full-fledged winter pattern tournament. While it certainly featured a good bit of that, he was surprised by the number of fish he (and others) caught in less than six feet of water.

“I figured we might get a true winter tournament and have it be frigid and a struggle and fight for bites without scope,” he said. “I figured it would be a jerkbait deal. Then I started watching highlights (after the tournament was over) and the amount of shallow fish that were caught blew me away.

“The way I prepared for the no scope periods was very wrong,” he added. “For me, I was looking forward to how far north and how early it was.”

He committed the majority of practice to finding an area he could rely on during the periods where live sonar was allowed.

“In practice, I chase the scope deal until I find the deal – until it screams at me,” Gill said. “In winter, they generally get grouped up and they’re generally big.”

He found what ultimately was his best area for scoping toward the end of the second practice day, leaving him a couple hours to identify additional areas to probe for the non-scoping periods. He had another locale that he called “mediocre.” He found fish related to bait in basins of deeper water in the creeks. 

His other plan to mine the cleaner water with a jerkbait around the bottom end of the lake didn’t materialize to the degree he was hoping. 

“I thought I’d be able roll with a jerkbait around grass in 6 to 8 feet of water because I figured it’d be tougher than it was,” he said.

Competition

> Day 1: 13, 43-08

> Day 2: 24, 74-00 (37, 117-08)

> Day 3: 23, 70-14

> Day 4: 28, 82-04

Gill’s tournament didn’t start on a high note. He managed just 13 fish – all in the first period – and was pretty dejected after not boating a scoreable bass past 9:14 a.m. Still, he was still in the middle of the pack in 27th place.

As he was lamenting his performance at the boat ramp after day 1, fellow competitor Ott DeFoe dropped by to chat about their experiences and DeFoe suggested he try a crankbait in an orange crawfish pattern, which is a pretty common hue this time of year. Many other anglers were slinging baits in similar colors in the event.

To open Day 2, he caught 14 fish weighing 47-08 before 9 a.m., exceeding his day-1 total. That flurry included two 6-pounders within 15 minutes of each other.

“I had a big scope period and then I tied on a crankbait,” he said. “The wind was more west and all of the bars had a little more stain on them. There was about four feet of visibility when it was clean but I needed it dirty. I caught about 20 pounds during the non-scope periods. I played a hunch and caught two scoreables then committed to it. Noticing that water clarity change was a big deal.”

He finished the qualifying round in 11th, just 1-01 behind DeFoe, oddly enough.

With the field cut to 24 for the Knockout Round and weights reset to zero, Gill had new life on day 3. He caught all but seven of his fish during the first period while using live sonar.

By the final day, he figured he’d pounded too hard on his live sonar area, but it still produced 18 fish to lay the foundation for a run at the title. He carded four scoreable fish on a jerkbait before committing to the crankbait to finish the day when he saw the visibility had clouded up again. He caught six for 18-06 with it to seal the win.

“The best decision I made on day was putting down the jerkbait and picking up the crankbait,” he said.

Winning Pattern Notes

> Gill noticed earlier in the day, the baitfish would scatter a fair distance away from the bridge and that made the bass a bit easier to target while using live sonar.

“The bass wanted to use the bottom but 25 feet was too deep for them to live under the bait,” he said. So when they’d get out away from the bridge the bass would get under them in 10 to 14 feet.

“In cold water, it’s not necessarily about finding the bait. You need to find the bait in the part of the water column that the bass are willing to relate to.”

> When cranking, Gill opted for a high speed reel (8.3:1) with 14-pound fluorocarbon line. The combo allows him to use the reel to break the bait free when it got hung in the hydrilla.

“I want the crankbait to manage the presenation for me. When you use the rod to break it loose, it doesn’t look natural,” he said. “When it would get hung, I’d barely pop the rod tip and give the reel handle one turn. It had to be hydrilla, too.”

Winning Gear Notes

> Live sonar (minnow) gear: 7’4” light Phenix Feather spinning rod, Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris CarbonLite Tech spinning reel (2000 size), 22-pound unnamed braided line, 12-pound Seaguar JDM Grand Max fluorocarbon (leader), unnamed 3/16-oz. jighead (2/0 hook), 4.25” Big Bite Baits Spotlight Minnow (blue gizzard).

> Gill prefers a hook no larger than 2/0 on any minnow bait shorter than 6” so it doesn’t limit the action when shaking it.

> He opted for the blue gizzard hue because its opaque white bottom seemed to stand out more in the stained water.

> Crankbait gear: 7’6” moderate fast Phenix X12 Composite crankbait casting rod, Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris Platinum Signature casting reel (8.3:1 ratio), 14-pound Seaguar JDM R18 fluorocarbon line, unnamed 2.5” shallow-diving crankbait (orange craw pattern).

> Gill also caught a few scorable fish on a pro blue colored jerkbait.

> For his treble-hook baits, he replaced the stock split rings with hand-tied braided line because it adds “extra mobility” to the hooks, he said.

“I won by one scoreable bass. I had 29 bites and lost one,” Gill said. “If you’re getting 29 scoreable bites and land 27 anybody would be happy, but landing 28 versus 27 is the difference between $125,000 and $45,000.”

He said he adopted the practice a few years ago for a tournament at the Harris Chain of Lakes after watching a YouTube video DeFoe had posted on the topic. He was fishing in a crowded area and wanted to make his jerkbaits and lipless cranks sound different than what the other anglers were using.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – “Just trusting the process. I caught most of my weight on day 4 with the scope. There was 200 pounds caught in that area over 4 days. As the bait would move and change, it would open up new portions to new fish showing up and moving around. My experience with bass is they’re not trustworthy creatures but I was able to lock in and trust new fish would show up. And sure enough, every 20 minutes they’d show up even with everybody idling through there. It was a big win for me mentally because I don’t like sitting still without pulling the trolling motor.”

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