Ewing Minor wins the Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship on Lake Murray

Ewing Minor won the 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship on Lake Murray, near Columbia, S.C., with three days of bass that measured 292.75 inches. B.A.S.S. reports he went 98.25, 95 and 99.5 inches, beat North Carolina’s Wyatt Hammond by 2 inches, and won $20,000. The win also clinched the Kayak Series Angler of the Year title. It was the 24-year-old’s third Kayak Series win of 2026, after Santee Cooper and the Susquehanna River.

Minor fished the middle of the lake, where it narrows into pinch points. Largemouth were suspended 5 to 25 feet down under schools of blueback herring and threadfin shad, and he found them with forward-facing sonar. He threw Fluke-style soft plastics rigged weightless, and they all had to be chartreuse. He let the bait sink until a fish saw it, then reeled slowly and sped up as the fish closed in. On the final day the wind pushed more bait through those funnels. He landed a 20.5-inch bass and a 20.25.

Hammond, from Fayetteville, N.C., finished second at 290.75 inches. He was the only angler to go over 100 inches in a day, which he did on Day 2. He stayed shallow on points and the breaks next to them and caught his bass on a homemade half-ounce jig. Jacob Berryhill led after Day 1 and finished third at 276.5 inches. He fished bass suspended under bait balls in one of the major creeks.

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

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: Bassmaster — Minor doubles down with Championship win and AOY title (Christopher Decker, Oct. 17, 2026).