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Gill catches final day limit weighing 26 pounds even Sunday to earn $100,000 top prize LEESBURG, Fla. (Feb. 8, 2026) – Mount Carmel, Illinois, pro Drew Gill kicked off the 2026 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by MillerTech season the same way he kicked off the 2026 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 (AOY) points on both of MLF’s top circuits. This week at Stop 1 at the Harris Chain of Lakes Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches , Gill had a killer gameplan 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 Sunday with an even 26 pounds (including an 8-pounder and a 9-pounder) for a dominating 66-4 total. Gill topped 2nd-place finisher 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 (including a $500 Berkley Big Bass Bonus) and also qualified for REDCREST 2027, which is at least a level of insurance for the BPT standout. Link to Photo Gallery of Day 3 Championship Sunday Weigh-In Link to photo Gallery of Day 3 on-the-water Highlights Link to Video of Fish-Catch Highlights of Day 3 from the Harris Chain of Lakes Fishing for suspended, offshore fish in Lake Beauclair, Gill showed off a master gameplan and did what he does best at a level nobody else could touch. 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 skillset and winners of the last two Pro Circuit AOY awards. However, Gill fished at a level that was a cut – or maybe two cuts, even – above his competition throughout the entire event. 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 outlined. “Picking your approach is really important. With an A-rig, the big thing is you’ve got about six 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.” 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 and 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 resume. “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.” The top 20 pros at the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Stop 1 at the Harris Chain of Lakes Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches finished: 1st: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 13 bass, 66-4, $100,000 2nd: Brody Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, 15 bass, 48-14, $25,000 3rd: Aaron Yavorsky, Palm Harbor, Fla., nine bass, 43-3, $20,000 4th: Connor Jacob, Peoria, Ill., 15 bass, 42-12, $18,000 5th: Keith Poche, Pike Road, Ala., 15 bass, 39-13, $17,000 6th: Jared Lintner, Covington, Ga., 15 bass, 39-4, $16,000 7th: Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, 14 bass, 36-15, $15,000 8th: Broderick Luckey, Lynchburg, Va., 14 bass, 36-11, $14,000 9th: Marshall Robinson, Landrum, S.C., 15 bass, 36-4, $13,000 10th: Ryan Lachniet, Gum Spring, Va., 15 bass, 36-3, $12,000 11th: Jack Daniel Williams, Kingsport, Tenn., 15 bass, 33-10, $10,000 12th: Samuel Fish, Chelsea, Ala., 14 bass, 33-7, $10,000 13th: Will Harkins, Blairsville, Ga., 15 bass, 31-11, $10,000 14th: Terry Scroggins, San Mateo, Fla., 15 bass, 31-5, $10,000 15th: Gary Klein, Mingus, Texas, 15 bass, 30-15, $10,000 16th: Dylan Nutt, Nashville, Tenn., 13 bass, 30-12, $10,000 17th: Tyler Campbell, Martin, Ga., 12 bass, 30-1, $10,000 18th: Drew Boggs, Lebanon, Tenn., 12 bass, 29-14, $10,000 19th: Colby Miller, Elmer, La., eight bass, 29-12, $10,000 20th: Matt Massey, Saint Augustine, Fla., 13 bass, 29-10, $10,000 Complete results for the entire tournament can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com. Overall, there were 180 bass weighing 417 pounds, 3 ounces caught by 44 pros Sunday. The catch included 25 five-bass limits. The three-day Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Stop 1 at the Harris Chain of Lakes Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches, hosted by Discover Lake County Florida, featured professional pro anglers competing for a top prize of up to $135,000. Pros were also vying for valuable points to qualify for the 2026 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Championship, hosted by Experience Kissimmee , set for Sept. 18-20 on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in Kissimmee, Florida, as well as REDCREST 2027 qualification and a coveted spot on the MLF Bass Pro Tour – the sport’s premier circuit. “Closing out the final day of competition at the 2026 Major League Fishing Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Stop 1 was an incredible moment for Lake County and the City of Leesburg,” said Ryan Ritchie, Director, Office of Tourism-Discover Lake County. “The anglers delivered an unforgettable finish on our waters, and the excitement on shore matched every ounce of intensity that carried throughout the tournament. We’re grateful to stand alongside the City of Leesburg, the Lake County Board of County Commissioners, our Tourist Development Council and the Greater Orlando Sports Commission, and we appreciate the partnership that helped deliver an event that brought national attention and meaningful economic impact to our community.” The full field competed in the two-day opening round on Friday and Saturday in a five-fish, weigh-in format. Only the top 50 pros, based on their two-day cumulative weight, advanced to the final round on Championship Sunday, where they competed for the grand prize of up to $135,000. Television coverage of the MLF Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by MillerTech Stop 1 at the Harris Chain Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches will air as a two-hour episode, premiering at 9 a.m. ET, on Sunday, Sept. 6 on VICE TV. The next event for 2026 is the MLF Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Stop 2 at Santee Cooper Lakes, set for Feb. 26-28 in Clarendon County, South Carolina. |