With blueback herring as the main forage, these bass often follow large schools of these baitfish, feeding aggressively on them. The wide variety of structures, including docks, rocky points, creek channels, standing timber, brush piles, and even offshore areas, offers a diverse habitat for the angler to try many different presentations, as shown by these Top 10 anglers below. These anglers showed that by understanding the behaviors of these bass and adapting to changing conditions, the presentations they used brought them success.
Ewing Minor of Tennessee took top honors at the 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship on Lake Murray with 292.75” for his three-day total. His setups included a Little Miami Outfitters 6’10” medium-light Utan rod spooled with 10 lb Seaguar Smackdown Flash Green and a 15lb Invizx leader. Minor alternated between 5” Zoom Super Fluke and Yamamoto D-Shad rigged on a 2/0 cover shot for an open hook. A majority of his fish were caught with this setup.
Minor used a 6 ’10 medium casting rod, 15 lb InvizX Berkley Doom Stroller 90 Vapor Herring, landing two of his best five fish on Day 1.
On Day 3, four of Minor’s best five fish were caught using a Little Miami Outfitters 7’ medium with 10 lb Smackdown Flash Green line and a 15lb InvizX leader and a 6” Zoom Super Fluke rigged with a 3/0 cover shot hook.
Wyatt Hammond of North Carolina finished in the runner-up spot with 290.75” using a Brazalo “Wee Whacker” buzz bait in the mornings to cover water until the sun came up. He then went to a ½ oz. hand-tied homemade jig made with live rubber and paired it with a Berkley MaxScent Creature Hawg or 6th Sense Prawn.
His setups included a G Loomis rod with 20 lb Sunline. His main strategy was to locate wolf packs of fish that were in 5-6 feet of water roaming around the edges of points. Hammond mentioned, “These areas were often overlooked because they weren’t on top of points and these fish bit very readily once I found them.” The schools would break up very quickly for Hammond and he had to cover a lot of water to find the schools since they moved around as the sun came up and the wind changed direction. He also said, “Another key element was using red accents on the jig since a lot of the crayfish in Lake Murray are very bright red this time of year. He said, “It definitely made a difference when I switched to something with bright red in it.”
Jacob Berryhill of Tennessee finished third with 276.5 inches using a chartreuse/pearl Zoom Super Fluke with a BKK 2/0 hook. His setup included a 6’8” Dixie Finesse Special custom rod.
Carson Holbert of Alabama finished with 274.5” targeting floaters all three days of the tournament with the following setup:
A Joe Burns 7-foot Ultra Finesse Carbon Extreme rod and Shimano Vanford 2500 reel. For line, he used 10 lb. PowerPro braid to 10 lb. Gamma Edge Fluorocarbon. Holbert mentioned, “The key lure for me was a 3/32 Gamakatsu Horizon Head on a Deps 4.5 inch Sakamata Shad in Wakasagi and Silver Shiner colors.”
Jake Angulus of New Hampshire finished with 266 inches and a Top 10 finish with the following setups:
Rod 1
Douglas XMatrix DXC 724F
Angulus would start his morning by throwing a Martins Custom Baits Kinetic Buzz color in shad spawn color and mentioned, “As I was waiting for the sun to rise and set up my live scope fish.”
Rod 2
Douglas XMatrix DXS 763SF
Martin custom minnow head 3/16 did most of Angulus’ damage in this event. His minnow of choice was a Crush City Mooch Minnow. The color changed throughout the tournament as conditions changed
Rod 3
Douglas XMatrix DXC 715
Hideup Coike Fullcast #266 Clear Salmon Pepper
Angulus mentioned, “This really saved my tournament, sinking this bait down into 25 feet around stumps and hard bottom on day 3; this got me a few key bites.”
Drew Gregory of Ohio submitted 265.5 inches to finish in the Top 10. As you can see in his full event GoPro highlights, and to no one’s surprise, Gregory power fished up the river with his signature rod designed specifically for power fishing – KastKing’s Verus DG-Power – set to be in stores early in 2027. He paired it with KastKing Mg-Ti and Al-Ti reels with straight 30lb Sunline SX1 braid. His main weapons of choice? A 1/2oz Z-MAN Slingbladez (“spot remover” color) tipped with the new Octane Minnowz. Gregory mentioned, “I added a second skirt for more bulk, visibility, and water displacement. He also used the Octane MinnowsZ (Baby Gill color) as a trailer with the new EVO HD Chatterbait (3/8oz in GP Melon) for a few key fish. One final star of the show for Drew was a Plopper-style topwater, which is one of his favorite topwater baits to throw.
Rus Snyders of Tennessee finished in the Top 10 with 265 inches. He mentioned, “I caught fish on a variety of lures, but the larger fish came on a Spro Chad Shad.” Snyders used an iRod Quercus Toxic Swim Rod paired with a Lew’s Super Duty 300 reel to throw the Spro shad bait. A Temu Coike, used on an iRod Quercus Wild Card Finesse Flipping rod paired with a Lew’s Speed Spool reel, was another great presentation Snyders used to catch his limits.
