Bassmaster Classic trophy for sale, $20.
Certainly a harmless prank, but that’s what can happen when an angler still in college wins the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour.
Dylan Nutt, all of 22 years old, sent the bass fishing industry on its ear when he bested 57 others to win on the Tennessee River in March. Nutt became only the second B.A.S.S. Nation qualifier to win a Classic, preceded by Bryan Kerchal 32 years ago. He’s also the second youngest winner.
Like all Classic champs, the young angler from Nashville, Tenn., said the aftermath was a whirlwind.
“Super busy. A lot of opportunities, just got to make them count,” said Nutt, who will join the 2027 Bassmaster Elite Series. “It’s just a huge stepping stone.
“I can cross that one off the bucket list, go for some other things. I don’t want to say it changes who I am at all, because it doesn’t, but it definitely gives me a leg up.”
Interest in the latest wunderkind angler produced tons of media hits, so we’ll concentrate on some peculiarities of his tour de force victory.
Knew it in November
Nutt was super excited to set out on his Classic quest soon after qualifying. He finished third in the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship in La Crosse, Wis., on Oct. 25, giving him about two months to break down the Classic fishery near Knoxville.
Tellico and Fort Loudoun lakes are seven locks up the Tennessee River – about a 4 1/2-hour drive – from Lake Pickwick in Florence, where Nutt attends North Alabama University. The practice cutoff was New Year’s Eve. Nutt had the luxury of staying in a roommate’s house in Farragut, around five minutes from the Concord Park boat ramp.
“I barely slept at all before that first day of practice,” he said. “I probably got three hours of sleep I was so fired up.
“I was so tired when I woke up that next morning that I jack-knifed my truck – the steps on my trailer went through the bumper.”
Practicing daylight to dark, Nutt found an area of Loudoun that fished similarly to Pickwick, his college home water he knew well.
“I was able to go up for a week and half before my finals and about another 2 1/2 weeks after, a total of about a month,” he said. “I was catching them really good up on Fort Loudoun.”
Nutt said he pinpointed his winning area because he could run into five to eight 4-pounders a day.
“I was looking for quality fish vs. catching a ton,” he said. “There’s a lot of areas you can go catch 50, but they’re not very big. It was mainly how consistent Fort Loudoun was, and I knew that it was going to set up kind of in my wheelhouse.”
After some fruitful days, with his best five around 25 pounds, word spread. In-the-know folks began claiming this college-aged Nation qualifier had a legitimate chance to win. Nutt said he had a good inkling before finals that he might also ace his big fishing test.
“I knew in November that I had a shot at it,” he said. “I knew it was going to be something I had a chance at, very similar to everything I like doing on Pickwick.”
Couldn’t keep it to myself
During Nutt’s first day of official practice in March, some negative thoughts hit. He was seeing good fish on LiveScope but was only catching 3-pounders. That would not do.
Talking with a school mate in the derby made Nutt question everything. Tripp Berlinksy, the College Classic representative and Nutt’s UNA teammate, told Nutt he was catching 4-pounders in Tellico. Nutt second-guessed his plan.
“Then I went through area where I ended up catching my big bag the second day and had 25 pounds,” he said. “That’s when I knew, ‘All right, I’m doing the right thing.’”
There was a buzz as word got out during Classic week. Some anglers said they were intimidated to hear that several of the young guys were on them. Nutt said he probably should have played it closer to the vest.
“I told quite a few people – Logan Parks, the Surge Squad,” Nutt said. “I knew I needed to keep it to myself, but I couldn’t.”
Infected with fishing bug
Dylan has an identical twin brother, Carter, born two minutes before him. At 7 years old, both went nuts for fish at their grandfather’s stocked pond in Scottsboro, Ala.
“We’d use cane poles and catch bluegill and bass,” Carter said. “We ate everything out of that pond. We once scaled and put a 5-pounder straight into the oven.
“Dylan became obsessed with the tournament aspect of it. I wasn’t as enamored, but I was huge into fish. I had a bunch of aquariums. I love fish. He’d catch one, and I’d play with it.”
While Carter studied fish, Dylan studied tournaments and fishing techniques.
“I read everything, watched everything on YouTube,” Dylan said. “I was pretty much all self-taught. There wasn’t something you couldn’t find out on the internet, as far as articles after tournaments and what not. I was a real fishing nerd all the way through middle school and high school.”
At one time Carter had a 120-gallon tank that had largemouth, smallmouth, spotted bass, crappie and bluegill. Dylan recalls taking a bluegill to the aquarium in their “super cool” middle school teacher’s room.
“It killed all the fish she had in there,” he said. “That thing was aggressive. I would bring a little crappie jig in there, and I would catch it during class.”
The Nutts expanded to ply ponds and rivers around Nashville, including “breaking into some golf courses.” Dylan fished his first high school tournament in the eighth grade, and Carter soon followed.
“That’s when I fell in love with the tournament aspect of it,” said Carter, who began teaming with his brother their freshman year of high school. “We were extremely successful in high school. We set a state record for most amount of times qualifying for the national championships in one year.”
Prize money from winning the state championship their junior year went towards a 9-inch Lowrance with Active Target.
“We spent a lot of time on the Tennessee River,” Carter said. “Pickwick is kind of where we learned to use LiveScope. Fishing (Loudoun) is very similar to Pickwick.”
Dylan concurs.
“Loudoun is an unpressured Pickwick,” he said. “When we were the first people using LiveScope, it was insane. The fish were super stupid. They’re a lot bigger on Pickwick, but they do the same things.”
Mistaken identity
The Nutt twins will answer to someone calling out either of their names. Not many can distinguish between the two, but they have never pulled any switchup stunts – “That would be cheating,” Carter said.
Carter was mistaken for Dylan several times in the Classic media room at the Food City Center, once momentarily by this author before seeing his jersey. On Saturday, Carter was hanging out conducting interviews, and Cooper Gallant offered him congratulations for his big day, thinking it was Dylan.
But Carter had a great day, too. He won the Strike King College Classic Exhibition on Watts Bar presented by Bass Pro Shops with first-time UNA partner Bryce Dimauro. He’s since won an MLF event with Dylan taking second.
While competing on Watts Bar, Carter couldn’t really keep up with Dylan’s day, but he’s been his biggest supporter since he qualified.
“I’ve been hyping him up,” Carter said. “I was probably more excited than he was, just to watch him fish the Classic. I feel like I’m fishing it with him. Just watching him go across the stage I was bawling my eyes out.”
On Day 1, Dylan seemed disappointed, even agitated, that he only caught 19 pounds, 5 ounces. Yet he was in the hunt in fifth place, but he knew he could do better. On Day 2, he did. And then some.
“I couldn’t watch it while fishing College Classic,” said Carter, who only caught snippets. “I had my phone propped up on my graph.”
Dylan took the unofficial BassTrakk lead just after noon with a 5-2 that gave him 22 pounds. He then had two “How about them apples?” moments. A 6-11 at 1:42 p.m. and a 6-3 three minutes later culled 2 pounds each and gave him 26-11.
“I saw the first one when we pulled into the boat yard,” Carter said. “I immediately teared up, and my buddy called and said he just caught another one.”
Carter’s thoughts that his twin could win left him teary-eyed throughout the event. A 46-0 total and 4-pound lead gave Dylan reassurance that his dream was close at hand.
“After the back-to-back 6 pounders, I thought these boys are really going to have to catch them,” he said. “That was the moment where I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m probably going to win.’ It was unreal.”
It became reality on Championship Sunday when Dylan caught 20-13 to total 66-13 and win by 9-5. Along with the notoriety as Classic champ, he earned $300,000 for the win, $7,000 for the Rapala CrushCity Monster Bag, $10,000 of Toyota Bonus Bucks and $20,000 in Yamaha’s Power Pay.
“I’ve got so many things in my head right now,” he said. “It [the Classic] has always been the pinnacle of bass fishing to us … the last Classic that I went to was the one here back in 2023, and I never would’ve thought next time I went to a Classic I’d be in it and holding the trophy at the end of it.”
Bass prodigies on the rise
When first seeing Dylan at a Classic get-together, the Daily Limit’s impression was “a 14-year-old got in the derby.” On second assessment, the baby-faced, blond kid looked 17, 18 tops.
Dylan continues the trend of youth excelling. In the past several years, the Classic had its youngest ever competitor in Florida’s Aaron Yavorsky, who was 17 when he qualified and turned 18 during pre-practice for the 2024 Classic.
Trey McKinney, second in the past two Classics and Angler of the Year races, became the youngest Elite winner at 19 years, 1 week in 2024.
Last year, Easton Fothergill became the second youngest Classic champ at 22 years, 9 months and 23 days old when he won at Texas’ Lake Ray Roberts. In 1981, Stanley Mitchell won the Alabama River Classic to set the youngest mark at 21 years, 5 months and 19 days.
There were three competitors this year who could have bested Mitchell’s mark – Berlinsky, McKinney and Elite rookie Fisher Anaya, who won in his second Elite event.
With his victory, Dylan Nutt eclipsed Fothergill as the second youngest champ at 22 years, 3 months and 13 days. Brandon Palaniuk backed the notion that Dylan looked even younger.
“I thought he was going to get cupcakes and grape juice to celebrate,” said Palaniuk, a huge Nation proponent who vied for the 2011 Classic title as the Nation’s 2010 champion. “Dylan is 22, so he can legally drink a beer. It’s really cool to see another young kid win.”
Palaniuk said Nutt’s victory puts the Nation back in the spotlight, that the dream for grassroots anglers has been reinvigorated.
“To go through the Nation and show that route can get you here and that you can win the Classic as a Nation angler is exactly what we needed,” Palaniuk said. “It’s only happened one time before and Kerchal’s legacy has lived on.”
That legacy was strong with Noah Winslow, a Nation qualifier who finished 20th at the Tennessee River. Winslow hails from Naugatuck, Conn., about 30 minutes from Kerchal’s home in Newtown, Conn.
“Because of Bryan, because him being from Connecticut, that’s why I wanted to win this so bad,” he said. “I would have been the second angler to win from Connecticut.
“It’s very cool a Nation angler won, and it’s pretty crazy that it’s in the same Classic I’m in.”
Ray Scott Trophy firesale
Nutt’s Ray Scott Trophy for winning the Classic made the rounds. Heading to another tournament, Dylan dropped it off at Scottsboro Tackle, and he later traveled with it to sponsors like Toyota and Caymas Boats.
At one point, the trophy resided at the Phi Gamma Delta house at UNA. Carter’s Classic Exhibition trophy and roommate Shaw Banks’ MLF hardware all sat at the fraternity together. That’s when Grady McClendon, president of the fishing team, decided to have a little fun.
“I left it in his room for a week,” Dylan said. “He posted it online for $20. He said he got 300 calls about it. Everybody thought it was for real.”
It was certainly not. The title is, even if Dylan is still coming to grips that he’s climbed to the highest pinnacle in the sport and altered his trajectory in the industry.
“It doesn’t really feel like it,” he said. “I still feel like same old Dylan Nutt. It’s crazy. It’s crazy to think that I won the Classic. It really is. I don’t think it really set in until I was sitting down there in the studio with Tommy and Ronnie. It’s pretty crazy.”
Dylan might still be pinching himself, but the trophy, winnings and media attention aren’t the only reminders of how he circled the Knoxville arena as 2026 Bassmaster Classic champion.
“I’m still finding confetti in my boat,” he said.
