Gill and Robinson, Lane brothers claim spots in Summit Cup Championship Round
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. — It’s been a tale of two fisheries this week for Team Coign at the fourth and final General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops event of the 2024 season.
On Monday, the duo of Drew Gill and Marshall Robinson staged a dramatic comeback during Elimination Match 2 on Headwaters Lake after spending most of the day in third place, with Robinson’s clutch catch in the final two minutes narrowly pushing the team above the Elimination Line to advance to the Knockout Round. Fast forward to a vastly different experience on Florida’s famed Stick Marsh Thursday, where Team Coign shot out of the gate and dominated the competition. Gill and Robinson hauled in 13 bass for an impressive 26 pounds, 11 ounces in the first period alone before ending the day in the top spot with 26 bass weighing 55-11.
It was Gill who stole the show during the Bass Pro Shops Summit Cup Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches competition on Thursday, racking up 11 bass for 21-7 in the first period, more than the rest of the field combined. The Bass Pro Tour rookie went on to boat 22 bass weighing 43-13 on the day, surpassing the combined weight of Team Star brite, brothers Chris and Bobby Lane, who finished the day in second with 25 bass weighing 42-14. Eliminated from competition was Team Kubota – Bradley Roy and Jason Vance – who caught 11 scorable bass weighing 21-15.
Those two teams will battle it out with Team REDCON1 (John Murray and Skeet Reese) and Team Lucas Oil (Britt Myers and Terry Scroggins) for the Summit Cup trophies during Friday’s Championship Round. Catch all the action on the MLFNOW! livestream from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and on Rumble.
While a 180-degree change in the wind direction Thursday threatened to blow out many of the fishery’s prime locations, Gill and Robinson used that shift to their advantage. The duo spent the day utilizing forward-facing sonar to throw drop-shot rigs in muddy water along the banks of the main dike, targeting terrestrial grass and bushes in the middle of Stick Marsh.
“We backed up a very good first period with a solid second period, so we couldn’t be more thrilled,” Gill said. “We pulled up on a little stump flat in the third period, and I felt like it was the kind of place we could run into a couple big ones.”
“We just tried to find areas where the wind was blowing off the bank, so it was pretty protected, and stay away from the spots that were getting trashed,” Robinson said. “We were able to keep the pace steady for most of the day, so we didn’t feel like we needed to make any big changes or do anything crazy.”
While reeling in piles of fish, the two early-20s rookies shared tournament stories and reminisced on lessons learned in their young careers on the MLFNOW! livestream.
“I picked Marshall as my teammate because he’s clearly an extremely skilled angler,” Gill said. “He’s got an insane list of achievements on his résumé in a very short amount of time, and picking somebody clutch like that that’s super level-headed when things get tough, that’s an all-around win.”
“Drew’s 22, I’m 21, and we met two years ago at the Toyota Series Championship,” Robinson said. “We hit it off quick and became good buddies, and I feel like we work well together and have a lot of good chemistry in the boat.”
Gill did all his damage on a 7-inch finesse worm on a 1/0 medium-wire drop-shot hook with weights ranging from 1/8 to 1/4 ounce.
“I changed it up depending on the scenario and the depth of the water or the cover and what I wanted the bait to do,” Gill said. “I ended with a 1/4-ounce weight, just trying to get the fish to be more reactive. I fished through some stuff I had already fished toward the end, so I wanted to give them a little bit different look than I had earlier in the morning.
“It’s really important whenever you’re fishing at an area-based fishery like the one we’re on today that you show them something different each time you go through,” Gill continued. “It should be a little bit different with your presentation and your boat position on each pass.
“We did that really well today, and it’s what allowed Marshall and I to have the awesome day that we had out there in Stick Marsh. This bait was an absolutely essential part of it and caught every single one of our scorable bass today.”
Team Star brite shoot for second to advance
Team Star brite started the day in a unique area by the dam, where they found a large congregation of schooling fish. Despite visually targeting the fish using multiple baits, the brothers struggled early in the day, spending the entire first period in third place before rallying at the start of Period 2. Staying in the same area and taking advantage of a few key bite windows, they made a hard charge in the third period, pulling within 10 pounds of the lead, but couldn’t quite keep pace with Team Coign.
“We just spent the day going through it and through it and through it,” Chris said. “The one thing about Florida is when you find fish, you really don’t want to leave them. You just have to wait for them to bite. You have to sit there and go through the process of figuring out exactly what they want to bite.”
“That was a hard-fought day, I’m telling you,” Bobby said. “That was some ‘brother power’ right there. We overcame adversity for sure. We fished through an area, caught a couple of dinks, but the other teams were catching them. We pulled up to this point around the dam and they started schooling. We went through everything in our box to try to figure them out, and we didn’t.
“I think the only reason we’re advancing to the Championship Round is, No. 1, there’s a big north wind today. That lake was rough and mean, and we really didn’t have anywhere else to go. So, we just kept circling and circling, and it was enough to just keep us in second. That’s kind of what our goal was – stay in second just to advance. Maybe to a new lake, I don’t know.”
“I hope so,” Chris added.
With the weights resetting to zero prior to Friday’s Championship Round, the two brothers — who were born and raised in Florida — will certainly be one of the teams to beat.
“We stayed with it, we fought hard, and we fished hard,” Bobby said. “When they came up schooling, we capitalized on the ones that we needed to catch. … So, Team Lane is moving on. I’m excited.”