March 21, 2025

YANTIS, Texas — Nothing went as planned for North Carolina’s Wyatt Hammond during the 2025 Yamaha Rightwaters Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship scored by TourneyX. Fortunately, every adjustment he made produced big largemouth bass.

The Fayetteville, N.C., angler landed a 111.25-inch limit to win the coveted trophy, filling his limit with four bass measuring 22 inches or better along with one 21.75-incher during the 11 hour, one-day shootout.

It is Hammonds biggest tournament limit ever.

“This is unreal. Absolutely wild,” he said. “It wasn’t until midday when I started really catching fish and thinking I had a shot. One thing would happen, and I would shake it off and go to the next. Looking back, keeping my head in the game the entire time is what got me here.

“It seemed like every time I set the hook it was a 20-incher.”

Georgia’s Joshua Diehl finished second with 106.75 inches followed by South Carolina’s Bennett Nall, also with 106.75 inches.

Originally scheduled as a two-day tournament, high winds forced the cancellation of the first day of the tournament, forcing a one-day, 11-hour shootout on Thursday. The anglers made the most of their extended day, with 16 anglers reaching the 100-inch mark or better and 39 anglers landing 90 inches or better.

Hammond has fished in Texas only one other time — last fall at Caddo Lake. Nothing from that experience assisted him this week. He instead elected to target the types of hard cover that he finds success with around in his home state. Docks, a pond dam, riprap and rock were all key pieces of cover.

“Luckily, I got away from the trees, which is what I was trying to do. I wanted hard cover. Docks, points, stuff we fish in North Carolina,” Hammond explained.

A 3/8-ounce homemade jig paired with a Berkley MaxScent Creature Hawg caught all of the bass in his final bag. Humminbird Mega LIVE imaging helped Hammond make pinpoint casts to the docks bigger bass were holding on.

“I had a lot of fish following glidebaits and following ChatterBaits,” Hammond said. “I could see them on Mega LIVE following those baits. Everyone on Fork is throwing minnows, glidebaits and jerkbaits, so I wanted to throw something different that they hadn’t seen a lot. They hadn’t eaten it all week until yesterday. I told some people I didn’t think these bass ate anything being dragged across the bottom. But on tournament day, they ate something being dragged on the bottom.”

Throughout the day, Hammond was forced to make several pivots, but each turned into something better than he could have expected.

“Pulling up to a pocket and having someone sitting in there and being like, ‘Okay it’s no problem, I’ll fish over here in the meantime,’ and then catching an 8-pounder is crazy,” he said. “Then a boat drives over your spot, and you move on and find a brand-new school with 30 minutes left before lines-out and catch an 8-pounder; It is awesome.”

After practice, Hammond planned on tossing a ChatterBait in drains, but the first spot he pulled up to had a boat fishing it. He moved to his next spot and landed a 21-incher within his first couple of casts. He then caught two 20-inchers and knew things could play out how he wanted to.

He filled out an impressive limit measuring over 106 inches, and while he caught multiple 18-, 19- and 20-inch bass, he wasn’t able to cull up to his final tally until late in the day when he stumbled on that new school of bass. He landed an 8-pounder during that flurry to clinch the victory.

Everything he caught was in 8 feet of water or less.

After a horrendous practice and a trailer breakdown, Diehl anchored his 106.75-inch limit with a 23.50-inch largemouth.

“I have no regrets,” he said. “This was an amazing experience. It ranks in the Top 5 of all my performances. This is a dream come true. My goal was just to walk across the stage. Leaving with second place, I’m happy to be here.”

The Georgia angler experienced one of the most unusual ChatterBait bites in the Glade area of the lake. Fishing a drain with stumps in 2 to 4 feet of water, Diehl would pitch his Z-Man ChatterBait Elite Evo to the stump, drop it, and lightly shake it.

The bass would eat it and then sit next to the cover with the bait in its mouth.

“I started finding more bucks when I was following the drain. As I went back, I was seeing more and more bass relating to the ditch itself,” he said. “I continued to scan, and I made a cast towards a piece of timber, and I got hung up at the top of it. I dragged it through and when I did that, I let it drop to fix some line, and a fish sat on it. That was a 22.5. That’s when I realized they wanted it slow.”

Hailing from Anderson, S.C., Nall experienced the best hour of fishing in his life during this tournament, landing everything in his final 106.75-inch limit in the final moments of the tournament.

“It was the most magical day of fishing or even an hour of fishing I’ve experienced in my life,” he said. “I knew I had to find something really special.”

He landed just one keeper bass in practice; Nall was just hoping to score one bass in the tournament. With three hours left he looked at the leaderboard and saw the crazy totals, and knew hungry prespawners would be his key.

“The only way I knew how to do that was to chuck and wind a Rat-L-Trap,” Nall said. “I did that on clay points with a channel swing pushing up against it. One particular point, I pulled up to it and caught a 21 1/2 the first cast. I came back and made the same cast again and caught a 21 1/4. The next 20 to 30 minutes, I caught five over 20.”

A Rapala lipless crankbait was his key bait, mostly because it was the last lipless bait left in his tacklebox.

Ewing Minor anchored his fourth-place 106.25-inch limit with the Big Bass of the Tournament, a 24.25-inch largemouth he landed on a jerkbait.

The Top 14 finishers cashed a check.

Full results from the 2025 Yamaha Rightwaters Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship scored by TourneyX can be found here.

The Wood County Economic Development Commission hosted the event.

2025 Bassmaster Kayak Championship Sponsor: Yamaha Rightwaters

2025 Bassmaster Kayak Series Title Sponsor: Newport

2025 Bassmaster Kayak Series Presenting Sponsor: Native Watercraft
2025 Bassmaster Kayak Series Angler of the Year Sponsor: Dakota Lithium