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Meet the Angler: Bill Shimota

June 29, 2021 2:11 pm

Bill Shimota is from Northfield, Minnesota. Bill is a well-accomplished tournament professional who has fished in every major walleye circuit in the country.

No stranger to the leaderboard, Bill has 22 top 10 finishes in national-level tournaments. Most notably, Bill has several big wins including the 2006 MWC event on Bay de Noc, 1st in the 2007 FLW League event on Lake Bemidji, a 2007 FLW Championship Quad Cities win, a 2010 FLW Red Wing Mississippi River win, and also was named FLW West team of the year in 2010. Bill started fishing local MN walleye tournaments in the late 1990s and then moved to the national levels tournaments 

Bill’s home body of water is the Mississippi River. He does have his charter captain’s license and does some part-time guiding on the river. Owning several businesses including Stabilmount, an electrical business, and if that wasn’t enough he also rigs boats and plows snow during the winter months.  When he’s not working, he is spending time with his wife and kids. Bill says that he is a huge deer hunter and considers himself a big trophy hunter where frequently travels out of state to chase monster bucks.

Bill talks about how the PWS Series is going to be fun and is different from some of the traditional walleye series he has fished. He notes not having to worry about slot limits or culling, and being able to go to certain bodies of water where other circuits have not held events. For all the anglers having the same amount of time to pre-fish is huge and keeps things even for all anglers fishing the same event.