By: Jim Hebert
“Bubba Rossi & Tim Guillaume win out of Doiron’s Landing”
Bubba and Tim took their chances in the Atchafalaya when all the other boaters stayed on the Belle River side. Sometimes you just have to be different to make a difference. Even though the water was still 2 feet above flood stage they had the confidence to give it a try. Turns out they were right. They reported seeing lots of “black water” but did manage to catch their fish in two small spots where the water was mixing. It was enough to win the Tournament and “Big Bass” on this hot Saturday.
The EASL Bass Club met on August 6th at the Gonzales Fire Station to plan for the tournament. Before the meeting started everyone dined on Chicken stew, rice, sweet potato casserole, French bread, drinks and cookies for dessert. It was my turn to cook and I believe everyone enjoyed it because some had seconds and there weren’t a lot of leftovers. Pretty sure I heard a few compliments as well. LOL
After the meal, George signed up 13 boats to fish
the tournament. Mike opened the meeting
and asked for nominations for Tournament location. Nominations were trailer anywhere,
DesAllemands, Amelia and Doiron’s either side.
After a runoff vote between Amelia and Doiron’s the vote was tied. That
meant Mike had to break the tie so he voted Doiron’s either side. After that we voted for a 2:00 PM weigh in
time. The weigh masters chosen were
Roderick Saylor and Micha Mire.
With no other business to take care of we adjourned and after a short clean up,
everyone left looking forward to a good tournament.
Saturday morning we arrived at Doiron’s to see quite
a lot of boats already in the water and others parked around the store. This was a typical weekend crowd with several
tournaments going on at all times. We
managed to launch and got one of the last parking spots before dawn. By the
time we idled out to join the other members, Rod and Micha were already calling
for boat #1. We were one of several
boats that went south and all of them peeled off at different locations while
we kept going to our destination in the Marsh. I was determined not to be
fishing with the jet skis, party barges, ski boats, tube pulling boats, other
Bass Boats etc. After fishing with all of those two weeks earlier, I wanted
something different.
We arrived at “Plan A” location to see some pretty good looking water. After fishing a few minutes I threw my
plastic lure out toward some rocks and got hung up. After pulling and jerking to get free, the
fish that I was hung on decided to take off for deeper water. I thought I had a Redfish but Warren suggested
it might be a 10# Bass so I tried a little harder to get it in to see what it
was. It turned out to be a giant Catfish
that we estimated to be 15 or 20 #.
Anyway that would be the first of 3 large Catfish that we caught that
day. We fished on and slowly made our
way around to different spots until we had 3 keepers. Then we doubled back to
try for two more. We caught out limit there plus culled a few and then decided
to move to a spot to try and upgrade what we had. That was the right decision because we
managed to upgrade 3 of our smaller fish. The last two keepers were reeled in
simultaneously as we both had one on.
After that, it was time to head back to Doiron’s.
By 2:00 everyone was glad to be back after a grueling hot day on the water. We didn’t get a break until around 9:30 when a breeze began to blow to offer a small bit of joy on a seriously hot day.
Everyone gathered under the shade of a small weigh
station to weigh the fish. Micha and Roderick weighed them while George logged
the weights.
When the weigh in was complete, Mike announced the winners.
Bubba and Tim took first place with 10.37 lbs.
They also won Big Bass and the side bet with their lunker that weighed
in at 3.28 lbs.
Second place was won by Jim and Warren Hebert with their limit that weighed in
at 9.46 #
Terry Molea and Ricky Dedon took third place with a limit that weighed 8.44
lbs.
Congratulations to the winners of the August Tournament. Our next event is scheduled for September 21st. For more information on the EABC, visit www.easlonline.org.
