North Carolina’s Wyatt Hammond has taken the lead on Day 2 of the 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship presented by Native Watercraft with a two-day total of 196.25 inches.

Photo by Mark Cisneros/B.A.S.S.

Oct. 16, 2026

Hammond’s banner day lifts him to Day 2 lead at Lake Murray

COLUMBIA, S.C. — At 16 years old, Wyatt Hammond joined the St. Andrews Bassmasters as a co-angler, a club formed in Lexington, S.C., on the shores of Lake Murray. The first event he ever fished with the club was at Lake Murray, and Hammond quickly fell in love with the Saluda River impoundment. He frequently visited JC Outdoors to restock on tackle and lures.

Twenty years later, Hammond has a chance to write his name in the B.A.S.S. history books on the very lake where it all began.

The Fayetteville, N.C., angler claimed the Day 2 lead at the 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship presented by Native Watercraft with a two-day total measuring 196.25 inches. After finishing Day 1 in fourth with 95.75 inches, Hammond blasted 100.5 inches on the second day, the only angler to hit the century mark thus far. His three biggest bass measured 21.25 inches, 20.5 inches and 20.25 inches.

“When they announced Lake Murray was going to be the championship lake, I got a tingle that I had to go out there and show out,” Hammond said. “The month before the off limits, I was out here every single day I wasn’t at work. Two days a week for a month straight trying to figure it out. When I got here for actual practice, I had to scrap all of that and find new fish.

“Luckily I have enough background here that I could pick around and find little pieces to a new pattern.”

Hammond will carry a 3-inch advantage over second-place Ewing Minor into the third and final day. Carson Holbert is third with 188.25 inches followed by Day 1 leader Jacob Berryhill in fourth with 185.5 inches and fifth place Guillermo Gonzales with 184.25 inches.

With another strong day, Hammond will become the first angler in Kayak Series history to win multiple National Championship titles, the first coming at Lake Fork in 2025.

“If I could win it here, where I grew up, it would be even better,” Hammond said. “To be half a mile from where I started fishing with the original club and win would be something special.”

The bite across Lake Murray continued to be stingy with only 11 anglers reaching the 90-inch mark. Winds began to pick up across the lake as a cold front approaches, making kayak positioning difficult and giving competitors a preview of what’s to come on Saturday.

After scrapping his prefishing pattern early in official practice, Hammond has ignored the blueback herring bite, instead electing to comb the shallows hunting for better than average largemouth. On Day 2, none of his keeper bites came deeper than 5 feet of water. In that shallow water, he is looking for specific types of vegetation.

Many of his competitors have seen big bass cruising up shallow with their eyeballs, but very few have been able to coax those largemouth into biting. Hammond has taken a different approach. He’s been utilizing his forward-facing sonar to locate these bass before he sees them with his eyes and they see his kayak.

“It is wolfpacking bass. They aren’t on points, they aren’t on in the backs of the coves, they are just randomly roaming down the bank. Eventually you run into them, and usually they are 19- and 20-inchers. There’s a lot of bait up there. I snagged a yellow perch yesterday. There’s a lot of bluegill and crayfish too.”

Two baits have generated the bulk of his strikes the last two days.

On Day 1, Hammond did not catch a bass in the first couple hours of the day but caught a 22.75-incher and the rest of his limit later in the day.

That changed on Day 2. Throwing a variety of topwaters, Hammond caught three bass over 18 inches in the first 30 minutes. He then spent the next two hours without getting a bite. As the day progressed, however, more and more bass started showing up.

“Today they started stacking up,” he explained. “I don’t know if they were getting ready for the weather (tomorrow) or if they like the wind blowing. They started getting very predictable today. And whenever I did find them, I found 10 or 15 and could catch two or three out of the school. I probably caught 20 to 25 fish today.”

Hammond entered this event third in the Pro-Guide Batteries Bassmaster Kayak Series Angler of the Year race, 12 points behind Minor. With Minor in second place after two days, Hammond would need Minor to stumble on the final day to have a shot at AOY.

A Lake Wind Advisory has been issued for tomorrow across Lake Murray, with winds blowing out of the north at 10-20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph. That doesn’t concern Hammond much. If anything, he feels it might help his bites.

Minor, meanwhile, added 95 inches to his 98.25 Day 1 total to increase his total to 193.25 inches. The Carson-Newman University graduate and coach caught three 19.25-inch largemouth but did not see the numbers of 20- and 21-inchers that he did on Day 1.

“I started where my big fish were, and they are no longer there. I filled out a limit for 90 inches pretty dang quick. I decided to go back to a place I hit in practice that I hadn’t fished yet in the tournament. In practice, there was one school of 500 to 600 fish on a point. When I got there today, they had broken up into pods of 25 to 50.”

There, he caught plenty of 18-inch bass but could not get one over 20 inches to bite.

Throughout the week, Minor has been targeting largemouth suspending under schools of blueback herring and threadfin shad. While he may be in 30 feet of water, the bass are swimming high in the water column. One bait has produced most of his bites.

Although the big bass have vacated his best area, Minor said he feels confident about catching another 90-inch limit on the final day, which would seal up the AOY title in all likelihood.

“I feel really good about going out there and catching 90 inches tomorrow,” Minor said. “Catching Wyatt might be tough. I’m going to go out there and fill a limit and try to relocate those big ones. The wind today seemed to be moving some bait around and I think the bass went with them.

“But I can catch the fish that I’m seeing on my live sonar, and that always makes me feel good.”

Holbert, a 19-year-old student-angler for the University of West Alabama, has been targeting blueback herring eaters all week long. Most of those have been in open water, but the Tennessee native has caught key fish out of brushpiles on shallower shoals.

The morning hours have been slow, but once the sun gets high in the sky, he has generated bites with a mix of baits including a topwater, Coike and minnow.

“My fish start showing up around 10 or 11,” he said. “All of my areas have a lot of stripers, but about halfway through the day the good largemouth start showing up.”

For Holbert, presenting his bait the correct way is paramount, but the increasing wind speed on Day 2 made life difficult. With the forecast for tomorrow, he isn’t yet sure how he will adjust.

“Hopefully I can stay consistent. I had consistent bigger bites today,” he explained.

Tommy Brown caught the Big Bass of the Day, a 23-inch largemouth. Casey Reed currently holds the Big Bass of the Tournament, a 23.5-inch largemouth.

The Top 50 anglers will launch from any approved public landing on Lake Murray and begin fishing at 7 a.m. ET. Competitors will have until 3 p.m. to fish and will convene at JC Outdoors for weigh-in at 4 p.m. The winner will earn $20,000.

Full coverage of Championship Saturday will be available on Bassmaster.com.

Click here to view the full results from Day 2 of the 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship presented by Native Watercraft.

Capital City/Lake Murray Country is hosting the tournament.

2026 Bassmaster Kayak Series Title Sponsor: Newport

2026 Bassmaster Kayak  Series Presenting Sponsor: Native Watercraft
2026 Bassmaster Kayak  Series Angler of the Year Sponsor: Pro-Guide Batteries

 

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