Walker LaRue (left) and Joe Vaulton after winning the Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville championship.
BY DAVE LINK
Joe Vaulton and Walker LaRue of the Alcoa Fishing Team are rolling toward the finish line of their high school angling partnership.
They’ll have new co-anglers in 2024-25 when Vaulton, a recent Alcoa graduate, begins his fishing career at Carson-Newman and LaRue fishes his senior year at Alcoa.
They plan to reunite in the fall of 2025 as LaRue has committed to Carson-Newman.
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LaRue, son of Alcoa Fishing Team coach J.J. LaRue, said he’s ready for the next step – even with a year left in high school.
“I like high school fishing a lot,” he said, “Moving onto college is a big step, but I think me and Joe are ready for it.”
They’re not done with the 2023-24 season yet.
“We’ve got three more and then (I go to) college,” Vaulton said. “I’ve got to wait on him for a year, and after that, he’ll be my partner.”
They’ve been a force on the state and region’s bass fishing circuit, winning Co-Angler of the Year awards on separate circuits in the 2022-23 and the 2023-24 seasons.
After winning the state’s Tennessee Bass Nation title a year ago (they were second this year), LaRue and Vaulton earned Co-Angler of the Year on the Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville circuit this year, leading the five-event tour from start to finish.
They clinched the co-angler award by winning the season-ending Bass Pro Championship on Douglas Lake in late May.
“Me and him just work together better than anybody else I’ve fished with,” Vaulton said. “We bond and we’re good at it.”
Vaulton and LaRue didn’t know each other until Alcoa Middle School.
Once they met, bass fishing was a shared passion. They’ve put in countless hours on the water together, often with their fathers, J.J. LaRue and Barry Vaulton, serving as boat captains in tournaments.
“I think we’ve learned a lot from each other,” LaRue said. “We started fishing back when I was an eighth grader and he was a freshman. It’s just been cool to grow into the good fishermen we are.”
WIRE-TO-WIRE WIN
They started the Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville circuit last Oct. 28 by winning the Fort Loudon Lake stop with a five-bass limit weighing 16.13 pounds.
In the fifth and final stop, this past May, Vaulton and LaRue won with the three bass limit weighing 10.19 pounds.
Vaulton caught a 4-pounder and LaRue had one weighing 13 pounds, 14 ounces.
“It was actually a really, really good day,” Vaulton said. “We caught probably 50 or 60 that day. I always wanted to win that tournament because it’s always on my home lake and it’s the Bass Pro and everything. We caught a bunch that day.”
Clayton Kelley and Hunter Owens of Karns High were second (three bass, 8.76 pounds, 4.65-pounder), ahead of third place Hunter Olivet and Justin Payne of Alcoa Fishing (three bass, 8.62 pounds, 3.91-pounder), and Chase McCarter and Try Trentham of Sevier County (three bass, 8.43 pounds, 3.77-pounder).
In the juniors’ division, Hunter Massengill and Levi May of Halls Middle won with three bass weighing 5.80 pounds, ahead of Tyson McFerrin and Crews McFerrin of Karns (three bass, 5.59 pounds).
Weigh-ins were at Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville, a good drive from the launch site. Thus, the three-bass limit, per Vaulton.
“We put in at the dam, so we had to trailer out fish back to Bass Pro and it’s like a 20-mintue drive, and they didn’t want to kill a bunch of fish with a five-fish limit,” Vaulton said. “There’s a possibility of fish dying on the drive to Bass Pro.”
It was a special victory for Vaulton and LaRue.
“I’d never won the Classic before,” Vaulton said. “I’ve fished it three or four years in a row and always got a top five, but I never won it. It’s good to finally win it on my last year.”
LaRue will get a chance to climb onto Bass Pro Shops’ big stage again next year, and Vaulton might not be far away.
“It was cool weighing in in front of everybody at Bass Pro and winning,” LaRue said. “Hopefully I can try to win it again next year with Joe being my captain.”
BASS PRO POINTS RACE
Finishing second behind Vaulton and LaRue in the Bass Pro points race was Cole Russell and Jackson Bennett of Anderson County, ahead of third-place Kelley and Owens of Karns; Nolan Gray and Rhyder Short of Hamblen County Anglers; Landon Myers and Bryson Bailey of Alcoa; Jake Lovingood and Harlyn Nelson of Alcoa; and Chase McCarter and Ty Trentham of Sevier County.
In the juniors’ division, Massengill and May of Halls Middle won the points race, ahead of Parker DeFoe and John David Carroll of Berean Anglers, and third-place McFerrin and McFerrin of Karns.