Q - How would you describe your style of fishing?
BM - I try to adjust to whatever the fish are telling me, but mostly I’m very slow and methodical, and very thorough.
Q - Would you classify yourself as a specialist or a generalist?
BM - I do a little bit of everything. My strengths definitely pitching and flipping and fishing a bottom bait, really picking targets apart.
Q - Have our Indiana waters made you fish that way or have you always been a thorough fisherman?
BM - I just like to be that methodical. For some unknown reason the Lord's blessed me with catching a lot of big fish and I think that’s the key. Being methodical with it and instead of just looking at it as a stump, or whatever it is as a one fish deal, I look at all different angles. And I use, it’s weird, people don’t understand it, but I go with my gut. If I feel that there’s fish there, I’ll beat it to death. And 9 times out of 10 I’ll catch them doing that.
From doing goofy things, like getting hung up, going up to a stump to get your bait out and say that that stump is in just no water and you go bump it with your trolling motor or whatever, and all of a sudden a boil comes out from underneath it. Well that fish was there the whole time. So by finding some of those things, I’ve learned you just have to really let the fish tell you what they’re doing, but if it’s that way, then you just got to slow down and really work it.
Q - In your 3 BFL wins you never had a limit. You won with 2, 3 and 4 fish bags. That means your quality was pretty darn good. Does your style just lend itself to catching quality bass?
BM - Yea, I target bigger fish. Like I say, we’re forced to live in a state where we’re not blessed with a lot of fish. And I’d rather catch 2 fish , 2 quality fish as opposed to catching 4 or 5 just 12-14” keepers.
Q - Do you spend much time fishing deeper water in our lakes?
BM - I like to fish deep water. I really do. But for the most part I’m a 10’ or less guy.
Q - What kinds of things do you look for when targeting better than average sized bass?
BM - I work hard to find isolated stuff. I don’t have a problem poling for a 100 yds. out onto a flat to fish one piece of cover. Everybody else would say well that’s too far, there’s no water up there, there’s no fish on that. I strongly feel you get out of it what you put into it. And my practice time, not so much here, my time restraints with work really hampers my practice time here, but when I do practice I’m usually first on the water and one of the last ones off. I feel I’m not a real good fisherman so I have to make up for it with extra time.
Q - In practice – stick’em or shake’em?
BM - Never set the hook . Never set the hook (laughs).
Q - Do you try and cover lots of water in practice or do you just go around and check specific spots?
BM - I look at seasonal patterns, and I try and pick an area and then...I’ve got a 250 and I like to run as fast as anybody, but I’ve never caught one with that motor running. So I take an area and then dissect it, just pick it apart and try to find an area within the area. I try to find any little depression, any little ditch or drain, something that’s different cause I don’t feel fish leave an area. They’ll change with the conditions but the whole thing is just knowing that area so that if they’re not there you’ve got some other options that you can go and scatter and try and put something together in that same area instead of vacating and running to the other end of the lake. I don’t think that’s smart tactics.
Q - What is your current outfit for flipping and pitching?
BM - 7.5’ Kistler rod XH, Ardent reels, Gamma line 20-25# test. If grass is a factor then I’ll go with a braid. Gamma makes both a copolymer as well as a straight fluorocarbon line, and I’m just really starting to play with the fluorocarbon. I like it so far. I use it crankin’. I use it jerkin’. I love it for those applications. And I’ve got into it with flipping now. Four or 5 years ago I tried fluoro, another brand, and I didn’t like it. I snapped off on hooksets. So I’ve learned to adjust a little bit. That’s helped out. Back off the drag a little bit.
Q - And for baits?
BM - Jigs without a doubt. I’ll have my own jig out there in about 2 weeks, so looking forward to that. With plastics I throw a Tru-Tungsten weight and either, it depends. If I’m on the river I’m usually throwing a Zoom ultravibe speed craw up to a brush hog. I throw the big brush hog a lot.
Q - Do you downsize baits on waters with 12” limits?
BM - I catch a lot of 12” fish on 10” worms, so I don’t see the need. In fact, I think sometimes it helps me because so many people downsize and they’re (the bass) often looking for something different. They’re looking for a meal, too.
Q - As someone who has successfully competed at the national level, why don’t we see more Indiana guys on those circuits?
BM - The financial commitment is the biggest key. Not having the money. As for the fishing, you just have to look at that body of water as; I look at 100,000 acres just like I look at Monroe as 10,000 acres. I can’t fish 10,000 acres, nor do I want to practice on 10,000 acres. So I do the same thing.
There’s a lot of information on the Internet, and through fishing you meet a lot of people, too. You get general information here and there. Then pick a creek arm. On a lot of reservoirs they’ve got creek arms bigger than Monroe. So you pick one of those type of areas and that’s where you go fish. Don’t try and fish the whole thing. Same deal, go spend your 3, 4 or 5 days of practice in that particular creek arm that’s got a little bit of all kinds of structure in it and eliminate it, learn it and go from there. I think that was the biggest key for me. When you try and fish 300 or 400,000 acres all you do is just burn a lot of gas.
Q - You mentioned the financial component. I don’t think people realize just how much money it takes to compete on a national level.
BM - The way I look at it, I fished the FLW Tour and the FLW Series, which is 10 tournaments. Say you’re lucky enough to finish in the Top-50 in all 10 and you make $100,000. To put it in perspective, by the time I come off the road I made $29,000 profit and I haven’t paid any bills, my own truck payments, insurance, mortgage on the house, nothing. So it’s tough to make a living doing it. And it’s harder work than any job you’ll ever have working one.
Q - What about the talk you here of the pros using secret baits, or prototypes, or at least not the same stuff as we buy off the shelf?
BM - I roomed with Tommy Biffle, and I got to fish with quite a few of those guys in practice and what not. You just jump in one guys boat or the others and fish together. They’re no different that what we are right here. They do nothing no different. The only deal is they’ve got more time to spend on the water. The biggest key is a lot of those guys don’t have the pressure of having to physically make a check to come back home or to go to the next one. And that goes back to that financial commitment. They don’t do anything different. They don’t have special baits. I mean, yea, they might get prototype stuff here and there, but there are no secret baits.
Q - So your advice to someone wanting to move up from state level competition to regional or national competition would be?
BM - Put your family first (laughs), and if you can’t afford to do it, do not do it. Don’t chase a carrot. I love to compete more than anybody, but you can lose everything you’ve got real quick, too.. I know one guy for sure that won $100,000 and that put him back to $0. That was going to pay his credit cards off. There’s a lot of guys out there just trying to make a check to get even.
Q - What are you seeing within the industry given the current financial status of the economy right now?
BM - It’s as bad as what you’re hearing, and a lot of them have pulled back. For fishermen who are fortunate to have sponsors, it just means you’ve got to work harder for that sponsor to keep him. You’ve got to be willing to do a whole lot more than you’ve ever done before. It’s tough out there right now.
Q - Give us a few more details about your new jig coming out before we wrap up.
BM - It will be called the B-Mac jig. You’ll probably be able to find it at the Outdoorsman first (Greenwood). We introduced a spinnerbait and a buzzbait at the Outdoorsman’s Open House and we headed out to the Boat Show and they sold very well. They’re the B-Mac Buzz and the B-Mac spin. D&S Lures is actually the one who’s manufacturing them for me.
Bill's Sponsors: Ranger Boats, Toyota Trucks, Lucas Oil
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