How Drew Gill got the red trophy at Lake Murray, SC

Drew had some rookie year last year on the MLF Bass Pro Tour: a win, a 2nd, a 3rd and two 4ths in 7 tournaments. Kinda insane. So far this season he’s finished 7th, 11th and now 1st on the BPT, has a 2nd on the Invitationals and two 10ths on the Toyotas. I mean, do you think he’s got it going on?? 🤯

Here’s how he put this one to bed. As usual he dropped a lot of unique “Drew juice” (Gill juice?? 🤔) – got as much in as I could.

Going in and practice

> “Lake Murray is full of fish. There’s not 200 yards of Lake Murray that doesn’t have a bass in it shoreline-wise. Which means you can’t be around more bass than other people. It’s not possible. So my focus was entirely on bite percentage.

> “I spent the entire practice figuring out the best way…. I figured out that the highest bite percentage for me fishing with Scope was fishing for deep ones – 25-35′ [most guys were Scoping in 10-15′]. …fewer [fish] than everywhere else, but I could stay around a lot of them and they bit…and that was the most important thing.

> “…fish that are deeper is another way to get fish further from the boat. Your casting distance is fixed – you can only cast so far. If I throw an 80′ cast [to a fish] 5′ deep, he’s closer to the boat than if I throw an 80′ cast and he’s 30′ deep.

> “So it’s a good way to put distance between you and the fish – you have more space of the water to work with before they [sense] the boat. Because there they can see so well, they have a lot of fishing pressure and they’re very boat-shy.

> “I wanted to be in cleaner water, but my main focus was get the highest bite ratio I can and be efficient by being in a zone of the lake that doesn’t have as many darn stripers. The mid part of the lake had the most insignificant striper population.

> “[For the non-FFS periods it was] the same approach…bite percentage. Because I couldn’t directly target a fish, I had to have the other aspect of it which is, What is the highest bite percentage I can get while still being confident that I can put a bait directly in front of bass? …led me to the docks.

> “…I just focused on how do I catch these fish – watching their mannerisms in practice, seeing how they moved, how they acted. What do most of the bass do in Lake Murray.

> “You could [skip a bait under a dock and] at first they would never react. After a few seconds they’d swim down and look at it. Sometimes they’d swim away. And then they’d come back and eat it.

> “…I knew that some would come and eat it within a 5-10 second span…but most times in practice it was taking me 30-45 seconds…to get one to eat.

> “…figured out what style of docks were most efficient…. I wanted to fish the shallowest docks I could that I was still confident there would often be fish under. [Shallow ones because he would] not have to wait as long for them to close the distance to the bottom, and…I could still pull one down [because it could see his bait].

> “…fish the shallowest docks I could while still being around a bunch of them – which led me into the 5-8′ zone.

> “That Neko rig had the best bite percentage in general, but I knew I had to be really patient. When I had a dock that I trusted, I’d skip my bait under there and I’d wait. I’d let it go to the bottom and I’d wait. I’d shake the slack a couple times – I’d shake it in place without moving it – and then I’d wait.

> “Pre-Scope, we’d have thought we were fishing for bed-fish…which was not the case. They were suspended under the floats, but they were acting so odd.”

Tournament

He chose to use FFS period 1 of each day:

> “It was kind of that typical herring lake ditch deal where it only really played in the morning. You had to go out and get it quick because it fizzled at 9-9:15 in the morning.

> “Due to daylight savings…having that extra hour of the morning bite is the reason I won. I had between 25 and 30 lbs the first 3 days during the Scope period, and then I had 45 [lbs day 4].

> “The 1st day I went out and fished for my minnow fish trying to catch them as efficiently as possible and figure out what zones [areas] I wanted to be in. It was dead in the beginning of the period, then I smoked ’em…dead again and then I smoked ’em at the end.

> “…this is gonna be a deal where you’re going to have to get in a hot stretch. It’s not going to be that you can nickel and dime. You’re gonna have to get in a zone [area/spot] where they set up right and catch them fast, and as soon as you recognize it’s starting to trail off you’ve got to move.

> “The dock deal I found in practice was shallow and it was up-lake so it was dirty water. …I was like, If it’s this cold [which it was day 1]…their radius of distance that they’re going to be willing to come follow my bait will be [less]. I won’t be super efficient fishing in this dirty water when the water temp’s dropped 4 degrees….

> “So if they’re not willing to come as far to find [his bait], I have to find clean water that allows the fish to be more aware of it. If they can see it, it will increase the odds of one being willing to follow my bait.

> “So I looked for cleaner water the afternoon of day 1 and put together a pretty good final period….

> “The 2nd day I know I realistically don’t have to catch more than 20 lbs…. I start fishing new stuff in the Scope period. I get in an area and noticed a school of fish, a group of 25-30 of them…alright that’s gonna be a deal. If can get around some groups, I can catch them pretty fast.

> “That day I found a couple new zones…. I ended up catching a couple at the very end of the period on some deep stumps in like 30′. They were the easiest to catch…they were dumb When I saw that I was super excited.

> “The average size was better. The average size of my minnow fish was right at 3, and the average size on the bottom fish was more like 3.5. So I was like, I’m going to integrate that where I can….

> Knockout Round: “I had struggles getting them to bite…gave me mixed emotions on what I wanted to do. Those bottom fish were easier to catch and the minnow fish had gotten a little harder to catch.

> “The 2nd period I started with two 4.5-lbers and a 3 skipping docks. It was 73 degrees, full sun, a beautiful day for skipping a worm under a dock.

> “I caught 2 more toward the end of the period. At that point I started just looking – skip and shake [off], skip and shake. I felt pretty good about it.

> “I thought…if I can win the Scope period [the final day], if I catch more than 40 lbs I think I can win the tournament. I was pretty confident I could catch no less than 25 lbs just fishing [the later 2 periods].”

Day 4 he started by catching singles or 1 out of doubles, and 3-4 off the bottom:

> “All were on 1 little zone of stumps about 30′ deep. They were so easy to catch you could even catch them after you’d hooked and lost them.

> “[In the afternoon periods] I thought I would catch 25-35 lbs at least, just fishing, but all my stuff was burnt down – by me, partially. Things were not going well in the 2nd period.

> “I started period 2 9 lbs above Jacob and now I was 6 lbs below…within 1 bite of Jacob at the end of the 2nd period.

> “I had to find a way to beat Jacob in the last period. I beat him in the 1st, he beat me in the 2nd, let’s beat him in the 3rd.

> “…another hour and 45 minutes [left in the last period], we’ve got time to get a couple more scoreables – at that point it just went dead. The last hour and 45 minutes I did not catch a bass and he caught 1.

> “4 and change on Lake Murray is not much weight. You can find a way to scrounge that up. But I started feeling relaxed because [judging from the ScoreTracker] there’s no way he wasn’t fishing the way I was. All the signs [meaning the bite lull] pointed to us doing the same thing.

> “…I hope I can just tack one more on. Somehow those 4 I caught [in that period] was enough to stave him off. It was a very stressful day…the most stressful hour of bass fishing I’ve ever experienced in my life.

> “The mental agony I put myself through…looking at those docks on my map. ‘That looks right…that also looks decent…that also looks good. The difference between winning and losing could be this next decision.’ I thought that for the last hour of the day.”

Baits

> Jig n minnow – 4″ fork-tail minnow (wakasagi-ish color, clear/brown back), 1/4-oz 90-degree ball jighead, 22-lb braid to 12-lb Seaguar Tatsu Fluoro, Bass pro Shops Johnny Morris Platinum Spin Reel (200 size), 7′ L Phenix Ultra MBX Spin Rod.

> Neko for docks – 7″ Big Bite Baits Nekorama Worm (gp/black flake), #1 Roboworm Rebarb Hook, 1/16-oz BPS XPS Tungsten Neko Weight, 22-lb braid to 12-lb Seaguar Tatsu Fluoro, BPS Johnny Morris Signature Spin Reel (300), 7′ 6″ ML Phenix K2 Rod.

Electronics

He is now all Garmin:

> “I run my Scope 100′ out, 45′ down, and had it dialed pretty hot on the gain to see them deep and far out from the boat. I wanted to have as much distance to work with them as I could.

> For the docks: “A big thing was the depth shading feature on my Garmin units. I was shading that 5-8′ zone on my unit, and could look on my units [to see how many docks were floating over that depth]. If it was a floating dock over 5-8′ water I would get pretty excited about it.”

His LiveScope is on a GPSMap 1643 and he has 3 EchoMap Ultra 2 12s.