From left, Ryan Bonin, Shane Doucet and Jarrod Derouen are shown with the winning redfish July 18 in the 2015 Southcentral Fishing Association Classic at Cypremort Point. They won with 16.06.

CYPREMORT POINT — When the fishing got fast and furious, three Teche Area anglers were hooking and unhooking the redfish as fast as they could to keep their hooks in the water in The Worm at Marsh Island.

After the torrid run, Jarrod Derouen of Rynella, Ryan Bonin of Bayou Jack and Shane Doucet of Delcambre had the “slot redfish” they needed July 18 to win the Southcentral Fishing Association Classic. The fishing buddies topped an 11-boat field and 31 anglers who qualified for the tournament held out of Quintana Canal Boat Landing.

Bonin’s 24-foot Haynie Bay Boat was anchored, as it eventually proved, in the hotspot along the long bayou. Their two best redfish weighed 16.06 pounds, giving the team that had cashed in just once in the four regular-season SFA tournaments a win worth $1,560.

Derouen, Bonin and Doucet also boasted the Classic’s biggest redfish, an 8.25-pounder that took the Calcutta.

“I knew we had a good chance to win. I wasn’t sure what everybody else had. I knew we had a good chance to place in the money,” Derouen said.

“Yeah. I was pretty excited,” Doucet said, noting he didn’t fish all the regular-season tournament but welcomed the invite to fish the Classic.

“The majority of the credit goes to those guys. I was just able to enjoy the moment.

“It was a long day. We didn’t catch for a long time. We had been scouting, so we knew we’d have to wait them out regardless. When they did (start biting), we started high-fiving.”

The winners had a 1-pound edge over the second-place team of Milton Davis, Brittany Davis, Nick Derouen and Riley Muffalato, whose best two redfish tipped the scale to 15.05 pounds for $700. The Davis crew has won regular-season titles and Classics numerous times in the SFA.

Third place and $400 went to Keith Delahoussaye and Coy Migues, who had 14.34 pounds with their two entries.

Derouen said he and his teammates had a good scouting trip on the day before the Classic.

“I mean, Saturday, we just decided to sit there all day and wait and see what we could catch. I think we caught 10 that day, all nice-sized fish,” he said.

The redfish that counted bit between 10:30 a.m. and noon, Derouen said. That welcome flurry of bites came after three long hours without as much as a nibble.

“Then we caught 15 in a couple of hours time. We threw back a couple of them that were too big,” he said.

Derouen, 30-year-old machinist at Gem Industries, was hard-pressed to identify who caught the big one, the one that won the Calcutta.

“I really couldn’t tell you. We were catching them and throwing them in the ice chest. We didn’t weigh them until we got back to the landing,” he said.

“As fast as we could catch them we’d try to get our bait back in the water,” Doucet said.

He said they had three good slot reds before the biggest one belly-flopped into the ice chest.

The key to victory was patience, according to Doucet, 27, a service technician for AT&T. There was plenty of boat traffic around them in The Worm, which gave up its redfish seemingly only at one time.

“People around us were also catching. I guess it was luck of the draw. We caught the bigger fish. Some people kept coming and going. We just waited them out,” he said.

“It rained on us quite a bit, too. Actually, we caught a good bit of rain. When it would stop, there was no wind or nothing and it was extremely hot,” he said, emphasizing the second-to-last-word.

Bonin, 31, works offshore in the oilfield business for Coil Tubing Services Schlumberger.