Wilson Shepherd (left) and Hudson Mynatt of the Karns Fishing Team after winning at Douglas Lake.
BY DAVE LINK
Wilson Shepherd was a guy without a bass fishing club after the Alcoa Fishing Team disbanded following the 2024-25 season, so he did what many do nowadays.
He entered the transfer portal.
Shepherd became a co-angler this school year with Hudson Mynatt on the Karns High Fishing Team, and the two are having a monster season on the Bass Anglers Invitational Trail (BAIT).
After winning the March 21 BAIT event on Douglas Lake, Mynatt and Shepherd are leading the points race after three of the five events on the trail. The fourth stop on the BAIT trail is April 25 at Cherokee Lake and the BAIT Classic is May 23 at Douglas.
Shepherd, a junior at Maryville High, previously fished for Alcoa’s powerhouse fishing team, and now Karns because Maryville High doesn’t have a bass fishing team/sponsor.
Alcoa Fishing Team folded after last season when AFT coach J.J. LaRue’s son Walker graduated high school and J.J. wanted to spend more time with his family while working fulltime.
“I really like J.J.,” Shepherd said. “I was kind of shocked when he said he wasn’t going to be the coach anymore, so I just had to figure it out and go with the flow.”
LaRue, who still keeps tabs with the high school bass circuits and anglers, helped Shepherd land with another co-angler and team.
Shepherd and Mynatt previously didn’t really know each other.
“J.J. actually put me and Hudson together,” Shepherd said, “so last summer, before the season, we started fishing together, getting into the boat before we started fishing tournaments. We got comfortable with each other, and these days with Hudson, I’m around some really good people, and it’s a good opportunity.”
They won at Douglas with the five-bass limit weighing 13.55 pounds, which included a 4.16-pounder caught by Mynatt, a sophomore at Karns.
Mynatt and Shepherd finished second on the Oct. 25, 2025 BAIT stop at Watts Bar Lake, finishing with 15.80 pounds while Colin Bourne and Crews McFerrin of Karns Fishing Team won with 17.23 pounds.
“We’ve had some second-place finishes,” Mynatt said, “but (Douglas) was our best finish. We hadn’t won one before that.”
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HOW THEY WON
Practice days were crucial for the winning anglers.
Mynatt didn’t get to practice in the days prior to the Douglas event – he couldn’t miss any more school – but Shepherd practiced on Douglas by himself that Wednesday and Friday and with his dad, Ryan Shepherd, that Thursday.
Their boat captain on tournament day was Mynatt’s dad, Justin Mynatt.
“It was definitely really helpful that my spring break was that week before (the tournament), so I went out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday,” Wilson said.
“I didn’t find much Wednesday or Thursday, really, but Thursday afternoon, right before the sun went down, I started figuring out a little pattern, and then all day on Friday, I just replicated that pattern and found new spots, and it paid off on Saturday. It gave us a plan.”
They caught most of their bass Saturday using Burtek Primus and Burtek Wrangler jig-head minnows, and they switched to crank baits later in the day for bigger bass.
They caught about 25 bass during the day and started culling fish in late morning.
“We caught a lot of fish all day,” Mynatt said, “but it was probably 3 to 4 hours before we caught 11 pounds. We just couldn’t get a big bite, and then we moved areas, and the last 2 hours, we caught a few big ones and went from 11 pounds to 13 and a half.”
WINNING BITES
Mynatt caught the 4.16-pounder on a crank bait, fishing about 20 feet from the boat. The bass jumped about five times before they were able to net it.
“I was fishing really shallow,” Mynatt said. “That was about an hour left before weigh-in. Once we caught that one, I knew a 4-pounder on that lake, that’s a good one, so I knew after we caught that one, I knew we had a chance.”
Shepherd caught a smallmouth weighing almost 3 pounds in the afternoon and got a critical bite just before they stopped fishing.
“I caught another largemouth on the very last cast that culled for us,” Shepherd said. “It was a two-and-a-half pounder, and we culled a small one.”
They won by less and 1 pound over second-place Mac Fritts and Cayden Wright of Campbell County, who had five bass weighing 13.07 pounds.
Tanner Holguin and Brody Shelley of the Hornet Nation Anglers were third with five bass for 12.36 pounds.
In the juniors’ division, Brylee Wolfe and Thomas Burns of the Smoky Mountain Anglers brought home the championship at Douglas. It was the first bass fishing victory for Burns and Wolfe as co-anglers.