The 2025 Alcoa Fishing Team with head coach J.J. LaRue (center in orange hat).
BY DAVE LINK
J.J. LaRue started the Alcoa Fishing Team in 2019 when his son, Walker, was in the seventh grade at Alcoa Middle School.
Two weekends ago, the Alcoa Fishing Team won the 2025 Tennessee BASS Nation’s State Championship on Dale Hollow Lake, clinching the TBN’s “Commissioner’s Cup” awarded to the state’s top high school team during a season.
J.J. LaRue coached the AFT to its third consecutive Commissioner’s Cup, while Walker LaRue and Jackie Hatfield were the co-angling champions at Dale Hollow as 2025 Alcoa graduates.
It was a perfect ending to the high school careers of LaRue and Hatfield — both signees with the Carson-Newman Eagle Anglers — and to the coaching career for J.J. LaRue, who told his team a couple months ago he’d resign at season’s end to spend more time with his family.
As for the Alcoa Fishing Team?
“I hate to say it, but it’s done,” LaRue said.
J.J. LaRue said nobody is taking over as coach of the team, and it will soon be defunct.
LaRue originally planned to coach the AFT for a year or so after Walker graduated but had second thoughts a few months ago and decided to give up the unpaid position.
LaRue, a full-time driver for United Parcel Service, wants to spend more time with his wife, Casey, and their daughter, Annie, along with J.J.’s father. Annie is on the softball team at Alcoa Middle School.
“My dad’s up in his age,” J.J. said, “and he’s always asking me to go fishing, and my daughter is playing ball. I hate to let (AFT) go, we’ve done so well as a team, but it’s time.”
Several of the current AFT anglers who aren’t recent graduates will fish for other teams.
“I have six kids from Bearden, and Bearden doesn’t have a program,” LaRue said. “Those kids are serious and are a lot younger. It was a good opportunity for them to go to a team that’s on a growth trend.”
LaRue coached eight AFT anglers who signed college fishing scholarships, including 2025 graduates Walker LaRue, Hatfield, and Landon Myers (Carson-Newman).
GETTING STARTED, ROLLING
Shop the Bigs Only apparel line by hitting the logo above. Bigs Only is the proud sponsor of the Fishing Files on 5Star Preps.
J.J. LaRue got the idea of starting a fishing team when Walker was a youngster playing baseball with several of his friends.
“They loved baseball, but pretty much all of them loved fishing and going hunting,” LaRue said, “so a lot of times, there were a handful of boys, we’d go play a baseball tournament, and then they were like, ‘Where can we go fishing?’ A bunch of them started seeing the school fishing program results, and I told them, ‘When we get to high school, we’ll start a high school fishing team,’ and I did some researching and realized there was middle school fishing.”
Thus, the team was born.
J.J. LaRue approached Alcoa High School about using its name and platform for the team, and the school was receptive, so LaRue had an inaugural organizational meeting. More than 150 people showed up.
LaRue built the team for a couple of years and got more serious about it when Walker was starting high school. He asked a college fishing coach about how to build a winning team and was told it takes several good co-angling teams.
“I told my parents, ‘If one of our teams doesn’t do well in a tournament, then another team from Alcoa will do well in that tournament,’” LaRue said. “That moment there was the defining change for our group because from then until now, in the last four years, we’ve won 21 top-team awards and we’ve been the top team in the state of Tennessee for three seasons consecutively.”
The 2021-22 season was also a defining moment for Walker LaRue, who was a high school freshman at the time and had just made the Alcoa High varsity baseball team as a third baseman. He chose bass fishing over baseball.
“I loved baseball my whole life,” Walker said, “but I thought my freshman year, I saw a bigger opportunity for me in fishing than there was in baseball just because I thought I was a little bit better in fishing than I was in baseball.”
Walker and several of his teammates excelled for the AFT, including 2024 graduate Joe Vaulton, who just completed his freshman season with the C-N Eagle Anglers.
LaRue and Vaulton, who will fish together next season for Carson-Newman, were the TBN’s Co-Anglers of the Year for the 2022-23 season when the Alcoa Fishing Team won its first Commissioner’s Cup as the state’s top team.
Winning the first title fueled the AFT for the next season.
“They saw the prize,” J.J. LaRue said. “The first year we won it in 2023, we didn’t even know how we won it, and it was so exciting for the whole team, and in (2023-2024) we went in with guns blazing. This year, we couldn’t believe we’d won. It’s been a good run.”
And it’s not over. The AFT has one more tournament before it is finished.
GOING FORWARD
From left: Walker LaRue, Chris Hatfield (middle), and Jackie Hatfield.
LaRue and Hatfield won the two-day TBN State Championship with a two-day total of 34.91 pounds.
They had the first-day lead with 17.45 pounds, which included a 3.58-pounder, and the second day finished with 17.46 pounds, which included a 3.96-pounder. Hatfield’s father, Chris Hatfield, was their boat captain.
“I wasn’t sure going into the tournament how we’d do,” Jackie Hatfield said, “because during the practice days, I didn’t have a bag over 14 pounds any day of practice. I knew the quality was there, and I knew if we put our heads down and fished we would run into it, and we ended up running into it.”
Trevor Sanford and Presley Lannom of Mount Juliet were second with a two-day total of 34.39 pounds, followed by third-place Turner Tharpe and Blake James of Rhea County (32.75 pounds) and fourth-place Hayden Barnett and Camdyn Cranfill of Kingston (32.55 pounds).
AFT’s other top finishers were Landon Myers-Seth McCroskey in 18th (28.53 pounds) and Harlyn Nelson-Jackson Hall in 20th (28.31 pounds).
“We went into the state tournament behind Mt. Juliet by a substantial margin and came from behind and won it,” J.J. LaRue said.
“Jackie and Walker won, Landon Myers had a high finish, but Jack Hall and Harlyn Nelson had slipped up in some earlier tournaments. They finished 20th, and it bumped our team up enough to win it. The top team in the state is the one we were all after.”
LaRue and Hatfield will fish in the Bassmaster High School National Championship on July 31-Aug. 2 at Clarks Hill Lake (Ga.), along with the AFT teams of Nelson-Hall and Myers-McCroskey.
“It’ll be exciting, for sure,” LaRue said. “It’s about 15 minutes from Augusta (Ga.) I think it’ll be cool. I’ve fished down there before, but I’ve never been down there this time of year. I think it’ll be fun.”
There will be a range of emotions for the AFT anglers.
“I’m excited about it,” Hatfield said, “but it’s kind of bittersweet being the last high school tournament I’ll ever fish.”
And it will be the last of the Alcoa Fishing Team.
At least for now.