Drew Gill wins MLF Bass Pro Tour PowerStop Brakes Stage 3 presented by Strike King on Lake Murray
March 12, 2025
Lake Murray has been good to 22-year-old professional angler, Drew Gill. On Sunday, Gill earned his second Bass Pro Tour (BPT) win in the Championship Round of the PowerStop Brakes Stage 3 Presented by Strike King at Lake Murray, catching 19 scorable bass for a grand prize totaling $150,000.
The four-day event hosted by Capital City/Lake Murray Country (CCLMC) saw 66 of the top professional anglers in the world set out to tame Lake Murray and reel in $650,000 in total prize money from March 6-9, 2025. The Championship Round on Sunday quickly turned into a microcosm of the past two years on the Bass Pro Tour: a one-on-one battle between Drew Gill and Jacob Wheeler for the top spot.
Gill and Wheeler have arguably been the two most dominant pros in both the Bass Pro Tour and all of professional bass fishing over the past two years, when Gill first arrived on Major League Fishing’s top tour—both Gill and Wheeler have multiple national wins in that span. They finished first and second in the 2024 Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race and are now back in the two top spots in 2025.
Drew Gill won the MLF Bass Pro Tour PowerStop Brakes Stage 3 Presented by Strike King on Lake Murray, catching a total of 19 bass weighing 58-2 in Sunday’s Championship Round. Photo Credit: Phoenix Moore (MLF).
So, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the two employed virtually identical game plans on Lake Murray, using forward-facing sonar during Period 1 to rocket to the top of SCORETRACKER®, then skipping boat docks with Neko rigs for the rest of the day. They separated themselves from the rest of the pack in the first couple hours of the Championship Round, but neither angler ever built a comfortable lead over the other in the race for the $150,000 top prize.
Ultimately, despite a stressful third period that saw him fail to catch a scorable bass during the final 89 minutes, Gill prevailed. His total of 58 pounds, 2 ounces earned him the win by a 2-pound, 3-ounce margin over Wheeler – less than the average size of a scorable bass caught on Lake Murray this week.
Even though he spent the final hour convinced Wheeler was going to run him down, Gill came away with his second Bass Pro Tour victory in just 10 career events and his fourth win across BPT, Team Series and Tackle Warehouse Invitationals competition in the past 13 months.
“If you had told me, ‘Hey, last hour and a half, you’re not going to catch a bass. Do you think Wheeler is going to catch 4 pounds?’ I would have been like, ‘Absolutely, he is,’” Gill said with a chuckle. “And [the bite] just died for both of us.”
Gill rode an emotional roller coaster, not just for the final period, but the entire Championship Round. When he launched his boat Sunday morning, he admitted he didn’t like his chances of winning, as he figured the overcast and cool conditions would hurt his afternoon dock pattern. “I knew the conditions were going to shoot my dock bite, and to be honest, I didn’t think I could do 45 (pounds) in the first period to make up for that,” the 22-year-old said.
Gill’s prediction of a slower afternoon bite proved accurate, but he capitalized on his strengths: a calculated, math-based strategy and expert use of forward-facing sonar. Each day, Gill focused the first period on deeper water—28 to 35 feet—targeting bass chasing blueback herring. He believed fishing deeper gave him an advantage, as those bass faced less pressure than the shallower fish others were targeting, allowing him to fool a higher percentage of them into biting.
“With a lake like Murray that has so many bass in it, your focal point when you’re using ‘Scope should always be bite percentage,” Gill explained. “You’re always going to be able to put a bait in front of a bass. You’re not going to beat other people by putting a bait in front of more bass than they are. You’re going to beat other people by dialing your deal as best you can and ideally finding a population that other people aren’t pressuring. And I fished for them deeper than anybody else did this week.”
Gill’s approach paid off with two key flurries that helped him rack up significant weight on SCORETRACKER®. In one 37-minute stretch, he caught six bass totaling nearly 25 pounds. Then, toward the end of Period 1, he added four more for a total of 11-8 in just 23 minutes.
He credits a fortuitous break for the latter action: The overnight switch to daylight savings time put the field on the water an hour earlier than they’d fished the rest of the week, extending his bite window. “(The bite) kind of went away around 9 a.m. all week,” Gill said. “But because of the time change, we got out there an hour earlier, and so that 9 a.m. became today’s 10 a.m. So, without the time change, I don’t win this tournament.”
Gill’s first-period total of 45-7 led Wheeler by 9-6 and put him nearly 27 pounds clear of everyone else. At that point, even though he wasn’t overly optimistic about skipping docks, he started to believe he could pull off the win.
“The two days when I needed to catch shallow fish, I caught like 17 pounds both days and shook them off the rest of the day,” Gill said. “I thought no way, even though the conditions were worse, do I catch any less than 20 pounds.”
The bass had other plans. After locking up his forward-facing sonar unit, Gill went more than 2 hours without boating a scorable bass. Meanwhile, Wheeler steadily added to his total. He passed Gill and built a lead of more than 6 pounds.
The fact that it was Wheeler, an eight-time winner on the Bass Pro Tour, chasing him down made Gill’s late lull even more stressful. Once he got the news that Wheeler had pulled within one bite with about 30 minutes left before lines out, Gill became convinced he needed to catch one more to ice the win.
In the end, holding off the No. 1-ranked angler in the world made this win even more memorable. Gill seems to be making a habit of winning in stressful fashion, as he had to weather a similarly slow final period in his first BPT victory, which came on the Chowan River last June.
Gill – who, as recently as January 2024 was competing in Abu Garcia College Fishing events – emphasized that any national-level win is special to him, no matter how it comes. However, he acknowledged that he set out this season to prove that his success isn’t just a product of forward-facing sonar. Mission accomplished.
On the Bass Pro Tour, where anglers can only utilize the technology for one of three periods each day, he’s finished seventh, 11th and first in three events. He sits second to Wheeler in the Angler of the Year standings, just six points back. Throw in a runner-up finish two weeks ago at an Invitationals event on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, where forward-facing sonar was banned on Day 2 of the three-day tournament, and Gill has left little doubt about his ability to catch them, no matter the circumstances.
“I will say, to come out here with the new format this year – and with some question marks spiraling – and to start the year with a seventh, an 11th and a win, I feel like is a statement that I was wanting to make to start the year, and it’s one that is made now,” Gill said. “Especially after the second at Kissimmee as well, not having it at all the second day of that tournament.
“It does mean something to me. But it’s no sweeter than a win any other way. … A win is a win, man, and it’s sweet either way.”
Top 10 Rankings:
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Drew Gill, IL — 19 bass, 58-2, $150,000
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Jacob Wheeler, TN — 20 bass, 55-15, $45,000
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Marshall Robinson, SC — 11 bass, 37-10, $35,000
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Mark Daniels, Jr., AL — 13 bass, 36-2, $30,000
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Brent Ehrler, CA — 10 bass, 30-4, $25,000
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Bryan Thrift, NC — 9 bass, 27-4, $23,000
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Jeff Sprague, TX — 7 bass, 24-6, $22,000
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Matt Becker, TN — 7 bass, 23-3, $21,000
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Alton Jones, Jr., TX — 7 bass, 19-8, $20,500
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Jake Lawrence, TN — 7 bass, 18-10, $20,000
Overall, the final 10 pros caught 110 scorable bass weighing 331 pounds in Sunday’s Championship Round. For a full list of results, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. The four-day PowerStop Brakes Stage 3 at Lake Murray Presented by Strike King event was hosted by the Capital City/Lake Murray Country Regional Tourism Board and showcased 66 of the top professional anglers in the world, competing for a purse of $650,000, including a top payout of $150,000 and valuable Angler of the Year (AOY) points in hopes of qualifying for the General Tire Heavy Hitters all-star event and REDCREST 2026, the Bass Pro Tour championship.
Television coverage of the PowerStop Brakes Stage 3 at Lake Murray Presented by Strike King will premiere as a two-hour episode starting at 7 a.m. EST, on Saturday, Oct. 4 on Discovery, with the Championship Round premiering on Sunday, Oct. 5. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on Discovery, with re-airings on Outdoor Channel.
The 2025 Bass Pro Tour features a field of 66 of the top professional anglers in the world, competing across seven regular-season tournaments around the country, for millions of dollars and valuable points to qualify for the annual General Tire Heavy Hitters all-star event and the REDCREST 2026 championship.
For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the Bass Pro Tour, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, X, Instagram and
About Major League Fishing
Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, Major League Fishing (MLF) is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization with a roster of the world’s top angling pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 20 countries. MLF produces more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America’s living rooms on CBS, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Channel, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Since its founding in 2011, MLF has been dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.
About Capital City/Lake Murray Country Regional Tourism Board:
CCLMC is the official source for all things Lake Murray Country. Explore The Top Southern Destinations of Columbia, Lake Murray, Lexington, Newberry, Richland, and Saluda. To plan your next trip, find information on attractions, dining, hotels, outdoor recreation, fishing, golf, and events. For more information about CCLMC, visit LakeMurrayCountry.com or call 803-781-5940 | 1-866-SC-JEWEL. Stay up-to-date with trip ideas, events, and more by following us on social media: Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube.
