Justin Payne (left) and Hunter Olivet of the Alcoa Fishing Team.
BY DAVE LINK
It’s not hard to distinguish Hunter Olivet from Justin Payne when they’re in a fishing boat.
“He’s all muscle,” Payne says. “I’m the scrawny one.”
Maybe. Compared to Olivet.
Olivet (6-0, 175 pounds) started every football game at linebacker last fall for Maryville High, which advanced to the Class 6A state playoff quarterfinals.
Olivet, a senior, also pitches and plays outfield for Maryville’s baseball team.
And when he’s not playing baseball on weekends, he’s in a bass boat fishing with Payne for the Alcoa Fishing Team.
Yes, the Alcoa Fishing Team.
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Since Maryville High doesn’t have a fishing team, Olivet fishes for AFT, which won the Tennessee Bass Nation High School’s “Commissioner’s Cup” in 2022-23 awarded to the state’s top high school team during the season.
Payne is in the same boat as Olivet. He’s a senior at Greenback High, which doesn’t have a fishing team, so he’s on the loaded Alcoa Fishing Team roster.
Olivet and Payne made their mark with the AFT last Saturday (March 16), winning the Tennessee Bass Nation’s Bass Pro Shops event on Cherokee Lake.
And the way they won their first TBN title was something special.
NO PRACTICE, LITTLE SLEEP
Olivet spent Spring Break week (March 11-15) with Maryville’s baseball team at a tournament in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
In the Rebels’ first game, March 11, Olivet, a right-handed pitcher, threw three innings of no-hit relief, striking out six during the 2-1 victory against Battle Ground Academy.
Maryville went 3-1 in the Gulf Shores Classic, and the Rebels got back from their trip Friday night (March 15).
While Olivet was pitching that Monday, Payne and his father, Buster, practiced on Cherokee Lake. Buster caught one bass, Justin none.
They went again last Wednesday and didn’t catch a bass.
“We had a stripe, a catfish, and I caught a 6-pound drum,” Payne said.
At least he got to tour Cherokee Lake.
Olivet went into the Cherokee event with zero practice. After getting back from Gulf Shores, Olivet went to sleep late that Friday night and was up at 5:30 Saturday morning.
Ready to go.
“Oh yeah, I’m always excited to fish,” he said.
HOW THEY WON
Olivet would have reason to be excited. He caught two keepers early in the morning, and then Payne caught two keepers.
By 10 a.m., they had their five-bass limit.
“We had two smallmouth, two largemouth and a spotted bass,” Olivet said. “That was pretty cool to have every species.
“We were fishing pretty shallow. The first pocket we started in was about 12 feet deep where we were sitting, throwing in about 3 foot and just bringing it out.”
After getting their limit, it was time to start culling out smaller bass.
“We kept going back and forth and culling all day,” Olivet said.
Payne landed their big bass of the day, a 4.06-pound smallmouth, on a fluke-style bait. He was panning through the sonar, looking for baitfish, when he saw a blob on the screen. It was the big bass.
“That 4-pounder, it was sitting on top of the bait,” Payne said. “I slung it and I was fishing that Damiki Rig, and (the bass) came up and stomped it. I leaned into it, and to be honest, I knew it was a good fish, but I’ve got to the point, I don’t get too excited because I know if get excited, I’ll lose it.”
This time, he didn’t.
Once he got it near the boat, Payne considered slinging the bass into the boat without using a net.
“I thought, ‘I’ll boat flip it,” he said. “Dad said, ‘I wouldn’t do that.’ It fought good. I could tell it was a smallmouth before it came out of the water, the way it was digging.
“When Hunter netted it and put it in the middle of the boat, I’m like, ‘I’m glad I didn’t boat flip it.’ I realized it was a big one.”
They knew the lunker put them in position to win the tournament.
When they put their bag on the scales during weigh-ins, Payne’s nerves were rattled.
“I knew deep down we had a chance,” Payne said. “I knew as soon as we put the bag up there too. I went and talked to J.J. (LaRue, AFT coach), and he went, ‘You know you won it.’ I was shaking the whole time. I think it really set in on me that we won when they started putting away the fish.”
Their five-fish limit weighed 16.02 pounds, almost 3 pounds more than second-place Cole Russell and Jackson Bennett of Anderson County High School (five bass, 13.11 pounds).
Grace Christian Academy’s Elliott Ward and Olivia Maulden were third (five bass, 13.10 pounds).
In the juniors’ division, Parker DeFoe and John David Carroll of the Berean Eagles won with five bass weighing 12.74 pounds (they were fourth overall).
OLIVET-PAYNE: WHAT’S NEXT
There’s not much of a break from fishing for Olivet and Payne.
They’re scheduled to compete in the TBN State Open this Saturday (March 23) on Kentucky Lake in the mid-state, west of Clarksville.
While Olivet is playing baseball for Maryville this week, Payne will spend some time scoping out Kentucky Lake.
“I’ll have to go in again by myself with nothing really known (about Kentucky Lake),” Olivet said, “but my partner’s going there a couple of days early and he’s going to try to figure out something.”
Olivet hopes to continue bass fishing in college at Carson-Newman, and Payne has talked with King University about fishing for its team.
They first joined forces at the end of last season at the TBN Southeast championship.
Olivet had been fishing solo with his father, Kevin Olivet, and needed a partner; Payne was looking for a new partner when Tyler McCormick hurt his back and couldn’t fish.
After a solid finish in the Southeast championship, they got to thinking.
“We looked at each other and said, ‘You want to fish together next year?” Payne recalls. “And here we are now.”