Date: July 2, 2024
Venue: Lake L, small flatland reservoir
Weather: Clear, light breeze, high of 93
Pro: Robert Gee, 25, Knoxville, Tenn. Gee competed on the University of Tennessee’s bass squad, winning a B.A.S.S. Nation Collegiate Championship in 2019. He graduated with a degree in agricultural economics, then qualified for the 2024 Elite Series by placing fourth in the 2023 Elite Qualifiers division of the Bassmaster Opens.
Boat: Phoenix 921 Elite with 250-horsepower Yamaha outboard, Minn Kota trolling motor and shallow-water anchors and Garmin and Humminbird electronics
Most toddlers have a favorite stuffed animal or pull toy. When Knoxville native Robert Gee was a wee tot, his most prized possession was a tube of crickets. “My family owned a vacation home at Nantahala Lake in western North Carolina, and I started fishing there when I was 2 years old,” he recalls. “I’d dunk those crickets and catch bluegill, crappie and an occasional bass. Later I traded in crickets for some bass lures. We lived close to a marina on Fort Loudoun Lake, and I’d sling topwaters and Flukes from docks and catch largemouth and smallmouth. I was totally hooked on fishing!” As the catcher on his high school’s state championship baseball team, Gee received scholarship offers from several colleges. He turned them down and enrolled at the University of Tennessee in his backyard, “so I could use the family boat and fish tournaments close to home.” Gee joined UT’s bass team, which competed in three collegiate divisions. “We fished the Bassmaster College Series and competed on bodies of water from Wisconsin to New York. This was valuable experience and really helped me when I moved to the Elite Qualifiers.” Gee is now making waves as an Elite sophomore — he placed fourth at Toledo Bend and second at Smith Lake. And wait until you see what happened when he accepted our DOTL challenge on a hot, steamy July day!
6:44 a.m. We arrive at Lake L’s boat launch. It’s 64 degrees and sunny. Gee readies his arsenal of G. Loomis rods with Shimano reels. “It’s gonna be stinking hot today, and I expect many bass will be on a typical summer pattern, relating to offshore baitfish schools,” he says. “That should bring forward-facing sonar [FFS] into play, which I’m very comfortable with. If the offshore pattern doesn’t work, the lake looks high, which could put some fish tight to flooded shoreline cover.”
SEVEN HOURS LEFT
7 a.m. We launch the Phoenix. Gee checks the water: It’s 86 degrees and stained. “My electronics are showing the lake’s thermocline to be at 15 feet; there will be very little dissolved oxygen below that depth, so the bass shouldn’t be awfully deep. I’ll start by checking for fish suspending around baitfish schools off main-lake points.”
7:08 a.m. Gee idles uplake to a point at the mouth of a large tributary, drops his trolling motor and begins scouting for suspended bass with FFS.
7:12 a.m. Gee makes his first cast of the day to a sharp break on the point with a 6-inch morning dawn Yamamoto Sensei Worm on a drop-shot rig. “There are some fish sitting close to bottom here, 12 feet deep.”
7:19 a.m. Gee switches to a 5-inch shad-color Z-Man Jerk ShadZ minnow on a 3/16-ounce Owner Range Rover Jig Head, retrieves it with constant shakes of the rod tip and catches his first keeper largemouth of the day, 1 pound, 1 ounce. “There’s a bunch of fish this size down there. I’ll have to do some scouting to locate bigger bass.”
7:25 a.m. Gee catchers his second keeper, 1 pound even, on the jighead minnow. “They’re getting smaller! That’s not a good trend.”
7:34 a.m. Gee retrieves a bone-colored Heddon Zara Spook across the point.
7:38 a.m. He moves to a steep tributary bank and drags/hops a 10-inch plum candy Yamamoto Ichi ribbontail worm around submerged brush; it’s Texas rigged with a 5/0 Ryugi hook and a 3/8-ounce sinker.
7:47 a.m. The worm hangs in a submerged brushpile; Gee breaks off and reties. “I hate that I got hung up and disturbed that brush. I saw two real big fish there on FFS.”
7:55 a.m. Gee moves into a residential cove with multiple docks and tries the drop-shot worm.
SIX HOURS LEFT
8 a.m. Gee retrieves a big shad-color Clutch Swimbait Co. glidebait around a dock. “Glidebaits are really exciting to fish! You can often see the fish swim up and eat it.”
8:04 a.m. Gee spots a sunken brushpile on FFS, retrieves the glidebait over the cover, and a big fish follows the lure but doesn’t strike it. He flips the drop-shot worm to the shrubbery, but the fish isn’t interested. “I’ll mark the waypoint of this brush and maybe hit it again later.”
8:12 a.m. Gee speed-trolls out of the cove and scans open water for baitfish schools with FFS. He quickly locates a massive shad ball that’s being bird-dogged by several big bass near a ledge with a sharp dropoff. Gee casts the jighead minnow to the fish and gets a solid strike. He works the bass to the boat and grabs his third keeper, a beautiful 5-pound, 8-ounce largemouth! “Dude, there’s a big wolf pack of lunker bass chasing that bait school! I hope I can get back on ’em; they were moving really fast.”
8:20 a.m. Gee relocates the wolf pack, casts a 5/8-ounce True Bass Shuttlecock Hair Jig to the mob and catches his fourth keeper, 5 pounds, 9 ounces. “This one is a clone of my last keeper! There are some much bigger fish in that school, too. They’re chasing bait around that ledge dropoff. This big hair jig mimics a gizzard shad.”
8:24 a.m. Gee switches to a Tennessee shad Megabass 110 jerkbait. “Most guys would probably think this water is way too murky for a jerkbait, but when they’re chasing bait, they’ll darn sure hit it.”
8:31 a.m. Gee relocates the wolf pack, casts the minnow mimic to the fish and gets an immediate hookup! He races to the back of the boat and works the big fish around his outboard, and it dives under the boat. The bass then shoots for the surface and comes unbuttoned!
8:34 a.m. Gee reverts to the jighead minnow near the ledge. Losing the lunker has rattled him. “That fish I lost was 9 pounds! I saw it hit on LiveScope. It was twice the size of those two 5s I just caught.”
8:40 a.m. Gee is ’Scoping open water near the ledge for baitfish and bass. “Those fish may have scattered.”
8:45 a.m. Gee relocates the bass school, casts the Texas-rigged worm to the fish and another big bass grabs it! His fifth keeper weighs 5 pounds, 7 ounces. “These may be cookie-cutter fish, but they’re darn big cookies!”
8:49 a.m. Gee is trolling away from the ledge in a big, lazy arc. “I want to give that school of fish a few minutes to settle down. You can’t keep hammering on ’em or they’ll scatter.”
8:58 a.m. Gee gets back on the school and snares a 1-8 on the jighead minnow; his sixth keeper culls one of his previous ’pounders. “They’re either 1 pound or 5 pounds in this lake!”
FIVE HOURS LEFT
9 a.m. Gee is hopping the big hair jig around the ledge, hoping to trigger a strike.
9:08 a.m. Gee catches his seventh keeper, 3 pounds even, on the jighead minnow.
9:17 a.m. Gee switches jerkbaits to a deeper-diving Megabass 110+2 with a chartreuse back and promptly catches his eighth keeper, 5 pounds, 13 ounces. “Wow, great fish! This jerkbait color is called PM twilight; they can see it easily in this murky water.”
9:28 a.m. Gee hangs another good fish on the 110+2. He plays it around the back of the boat and swings aboard his ninth keeper, 6 pounds, 3 ounces. “Yeah, buddy! I ’Scoped five fish in that school, and this wasn’t the biggest one!”
9:30 a.m. Gee calculates his weight total so far. “I’m right at 28 1/2 pounds and I’ve still got lots of time left! [Elite Series pro] Jacob Foutz holds the DOTL weight record with 30-11. I’d love to cull a couple of my 5s and grab that title from him!”
9:40 a.m. Gee scopes another giant bass suspending near baitfish. It swims up, grabs his deep-diving jerkbait, then explodes on the surface … and shakes free! “Crap, that was an 8-pounder!”
9:42 a.m. It’s getting hot and sticky as Gee continues ’Scoping the area for scattered groupings of bass.
9:52 a.m. He tries the Texas-rigged worm around a trio of suspended bass.
FOUR HOURS LEFT
10 a.m. The party crowd is starting to appear on Lake L, as ski boats and personal watercraft churn the water around Gee, who is retrieving the glidebait above a shad school. “That’s the bad part about this offshore pattern — you’re likely to get run over by a Jet Skier!” He adds that the offshore bass he’d been targeting are no longer actively chasing bait. “They’re just hanging motionless in the water column, which makes them much harder to catch.”
10:05 a.m. Gee catches a 5-1 near the ledge dropoff on the jighead minnow; it’s no help to his weight total.
10:11 a.m. Gee bags a 2-8 (keeper No. 11) on the minnow mimic.
10:20 a.m. Gee moves deeper into the tributary and shakes the jighead minnow around a rock point. What’s his take on the day so far? “I’m on a classic summertime offshore pattern, with wolf packs of bass preying on baitfish schools on or near a primary piece of structure, in this case a fast-dropping ledge. My goal for the remainder of the day is to bump my weight total up. I’ve lost two giants but I think there are plenty more out there. I’d really like to claim that DOTL weight record!”
10:30 a.m. Gee catches a 5-1 on the jighead minnow. “Culling 5-pounders is freakin’ unbelievable!”
10:45 a.m. The minnow racks up another big cull: 4 pounds, 13 ounces.
10:57 a.m. Gee moves to the mouth of the tributary, spots a big fish near his boat on LiveScope, flips a huge flutter spoon over the side and catches a 4-8. “I wish they’d bite this well in Elite tournaments!”
THREE HOURS LEFT
11 a.m. Gee makes a high-speed run uplake to a long mud point. He trolls a wide swath around the structure, eyeballing his FFS for blips indicating big, suspended bass.
11:12 a.m. A 15 mph breeze is moderating the sweltering air temperature as Gee probes the long point with the 10-inch worm.
11:14 a.m. He bags a 3-10 (keeper No. 15) off the point on the worm.
11:31 a.m. Gee runs downlake to a riprap point, drags the big worm and catches his 16th keeper, 3 pounds, 4 ounces.
11:39 a.m. Gee zips 100 yards to a submerged rockpile and catches a 4-0 on the big worm.
11:52 a.m. Gee races back downlake and ’Scopes open water adjacent to a steep bank.
TWO HOURS LEFT
Noon. Gee continues ’Scoping open water while “looking for something big enough to throw at.”
12:04 p.m. Gee sticks a 4-14 on the jighead minnow.
12:10 p.m. Gee scopes two hefty fish in open water. The smaller of the pair bites his jighead minnow first; it weighs 5-0. What restrictions, if any, does Gee believe B.A.S.S. will place on the use of FFS in future Elite Series tournaments? “They won’t outlaw it, but they may limit the number of transducers you can use. I get that a lot of fishermen think FFS is unsportsmanlike, but a lot of fishermen feel that way about bed fishing, too, and B.A.S.S. won’t outlaw that.”
12:15 p.m. Gee ’Scopes, hooks and lands a 5-4 in open water on his jighead minnow.
12:23 p.m. The minnow snares a 1-4 keeper. “That looks like a real bass, only smaller!”
12:30 p.m. Gee is ’Scoping open water across from the boat ramp. The wind has picked up and Lake L is whitecapping.
12:36 p.m. Gee hops and shakes a white 1/4-ounce Juice’s Jigs hair jig in front of a suspended bass without success.
12:48 p.m. Gee casts the 110+2 jerkbait to a pod of suspended fish but hauls water.
12:54 p.m. Gee catches a 4-4 on the jighead minnow; it appears to have a back deformity. “That didn’t hamper the way it pulled!”
12:59 p.m. A 1-14 keeper nails the jighead minnow.
ONE HOUR LEFT
1:05 p.m. Gee motors to open water near a shoreline picnic shelter and hooks a giant fish on the jighead minnow. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a 15-pound channel catfish!
1:11 p.m. He zips to open water 50 yards off Lake L’s dam, ’Scopes a good fish, casts the jighead minnow to it and catches a 5-2 largemouth.
1:20 p.m. Gee pitches the jighead minnow to another big fish he ’Scoped near the dam. It grabs the bait and rips drag as the pro races to the back deck to play it. The monster weighs 6 pounds, 3 ounces, culling his 5-7 and boosting his total weight to 29-4!
1:31 p.m. Gee moves back to the spot where he hooked the big catfish and catches a 2-8 on the jighead minnow.
1:40 p.m. Gee races back to the tributary ledge he fished earlier and speed-trolls the area, hoping to ’Scope a couple more giant fish.
1:48 p.m. He hooks and loses a good fish on the jighead minnow.
2 p.m. Time’s up! Elite Series rookie Gee has put on a world-class display of offshore bass fishing during his day on Lake L. He’s boated 26 keeper bass, an astounding 16 of which weighed 4 pounds or over! His five best fish weigh 29 pounds, 4 ounces, putting him in second place in the all-time DOTL weight rankings.
THE DAY IN PERSPECTIVE
“This was one of the most unbelievable days of bass fishing I’ve ever experienced!” Gee told Bassmaster. “What happened today demonstrates that vast numbers of quality bass typically live offshore during summer, roaming open water where most bass fishermen had never ventured before the advent of forward-facing sonar. Most of the fish I caught were relating loosely to some structural element, like a ledge or rockpile — they weren’t sticking tightly to it, just using it as a home base from which they’d venture out to prey on passing baitfish schools. If I were to fish here tomorrow, I’d spend more time moving around likely offshore areas in hopes of pinpointing the biggest fish I could find on FFS.”
WHERE AND WHEN ROBERT GEE CAUGHT HIS FIVE BIGGEST BASS
5 pounds, 8 ounces; 5-inch Z-Man Jerk ShadZ (shad) on 3/16-ounce Owner Range Rover Jig Head; bait school near tributary ledge; 8:12 a.m.
5 pounds, 9 ounces; 5/8-ounce True Bass Shuttlecock hair jig (white); same place as No. 1; 8:20 a.m.
5 pounds, 13 ounces; Megabass 110+2 jerkbait (PM twilight); same place as No. 1; 9:17 a.m.
6 pounds, 3 ounces; same lure as No. 3; same place as No. 1; 9:28 a.m.
6 pounds, 3 ounces; same lure as No. 1; open water near dam; 1:20 p.m.
TOTAL: 29 POUNDS, 4 OUNCES
