My two brothers’ fishing trips with me in the Sportsman’s Paradise began with the sun coming up over Calcasieu Lake and ended four days later with the sun sinking slowly to meet the horizon as we motored across the Atchafalaya Basin.

Those were extra special days, as were the three days in between when we also fished the marsh in the Quintana Oilfield, Bayou Teche at Patterson and Lake Dauterive-Fausse Pointe. Sometimes there was a lot more fishin’ than catchin’, especially for bass, those three days.

Bill Shoopman, Keith Shoopman and, of course, me, looked oh-so forward to the week of June 2-6 since the dates were set in stone in late January. Well, really, we’ve been looking forward to it ever since October 2012.

That was the date of their previous fishing adventure to the heart of Cajun Country. Like clockwork in a tradition started about two decades ago, the Shoopman boys from Missouri visit here every two years for an uninterrupted and blissful stretch of nothing but fishing and eating good Cajun cuisine. 

To summarize the week, change the “All work, work” refrain in a current television commercial to “All fish, fish.”

Bill, 57, and Keith, 53, left together June 1 in Bill’s nice Jeep from their respective hometowns of Kansas City, Mo., where we were all born, and Belton, Mo., to the Blue Fish Lodge in a duplex condo at Big Lake Guide Service along the east shoreline of Calcasieu Lake. That’s where we met and a few hours later appreciated the most beautiful of sunsets on the shoreline across the lake.

That set the tone for the next day when we were on the water for a breathtaking sunrise while fishing for speckled trout with veteran charter boat captain Jeff Poe, whose Big Lake Guide Service white T-shirt read across the back — “We’ve been whackin’ and stackin’ since 1985.”

After a fairly frenzied bite the first few hours, I think we ate better than the speckled trout . Bill brought the fixin’s from home for corned beef sandwiches with cheese on big ol’ po-boy buns, which he put together fresh that morning, a morning in which we devoured some delicious homemade cinnamon rolls with pecans made by Bill’s wife Jan Shoopman.

The 56-year-old Poe enjoyed one of those stuffed-to-the-brink sandwiches during an extended break in the action. He knows the lake perhaps better than anyone, something we’ve come to realize over the years as his guests.

Poe dodged numerous heavy thunderstorms and kept us in prime fishin’ holes all around the big lake. 

We left late Monday afternoon with six bags of filleted fish to continue the fishing excursion in the Teche Area. We ate like kings at home, again for the umpteenth year, starting that night with tasty boiled crawfish from Dago’s II, and each succeeding night with home-cooked meals thanks to my wife June Boutte Shoopman.

We bellied up to the table after each day’s outing, first for pork and sausage jambalaya, then crawfish etouffee, then chicken-and-sausage gumbo and, finally, white beans, rice and sausage. My, the pounds we must’ve added to our aging frames.

My trusty 20-year-old-plus boat and motor got us to each day’s destination and back. God bless the mechanics who have kept the ol’ 90-horsepower Johnson humming. 

The Thursday morning trip probably was the highlight of their stay as we tapped the bream population on worms around cypress trees in Sandy Cove. It was their first-ever strictly bream fishing experience and they enjoyed every minute of it. When the corks were pulled under, bull bream meant business.

Bill, who retired in December 2012 from the U.S. Postal Service, commented occasionally on the various scenic changes in the environments we fished from the marsh (Quintana Oifleld) to the lake to the swamp (Atchafalaya Basin).

He relied mostly on his favorite Mister Twister Phenom Poc-It plastic worms, which he can deftly pitch into the smallest of crevices. He scored most often on that, including a solid 2 1/4-pound or so bass that was the last bass we boated Friday in the Atchafalaya Basin.

We pulled a few nice bass from the spot where that one bit, the Prejean Canal. It was Bill’s second trip to Prejean Canal this year as he visited alone for a week of bassin’ in March, mostly in Lake Dauterive-Fausse Pointe.

Keith, a parts counterman at Hendrick Buick Cadillac GMC in Kansas City, caught most of his bass on spinnerbaits. However, he got the biggest bass of the week, a 3-pound, 12-ounce fish, on a Senko that Tuesday in a clear canal in Quintana Oilfield.

On Wednesday, after a disappointing day on the Bayou Teche behind Berwick, with Bill’s five bass the most in the boat, my son Jacob Shoopman fished with Keith in Mike Sinitiere’s boat (thanks so much, Mike) and I fished with Bill in a Hawg Fight out of Fairfax Foster Bailey Memorial Boat Launch in Franklin.

Keith said it best later, noting he appreciated “Mike Sinitiere lending his boat to us so we could contribute $30 to the local fishermen.”

We all scratched in the mini-bass tournament won by my long-time friends Carroll Delahoussaye and Danny Bulliard, both of St. Martinville. They are among the many area outdoorsmen my brothers met that night to be added to the list of special people they have met before, including Loreauville Mayor Al Broussard, Todd Semar of Lydia, Gregory Bourque of St. Martinville, Huey Olivier of New Iberia and Paul Bergeron of Jefferson Island.

Thanks to these welcome visits, bonds have grown for this small band of brothers who recall those days playing baseball in the back yard and football in the street on the 7800 block of Summit Street. We miss those days and we miss our parents, the late Bill and Marge Shoopman.

I wish times like these we just enjoyed lasted longer than they do. But there are families, jobs and other obligations, so we make the most of these trips every two years for a big slice of heaven in God’s country.

 

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.