New Iberia bass angler Caleb Sumrall, who started fishing as a boy around the Teche Area with his father, Steve Sumrall, and grandfather, Kenneth Delcambre, holds two of the bass that helped him earn a trip to the next Bassmaster Classic.

Thirty-year-old New Iberia bass angler Caleb Sumrall knew what could happen before arriving at the outdoor stage to weigh bass caught on the third and final day of the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

That didn’t make the weigh-in any more anti-climactic or prepare him for a flood of powerful emotions that overwhelmed him a week ago Saturday, the day he earned a coveted berth in the next Bassmaster Classic, the Super Bowl of bass fishing. When the emcee announced the weight of the five bass on the electronic scale was enough to take the lead, win the three-day tournament and qualify for the Classic, the world changed and doors opened for the young man who grew up fishing in and around the Atchafalaya Basin.

Back home in New Iberia, a “watch party” of his wife, their daughter and his mother viewed the last weigh-in, streamed live on bassmaster.com. Jacie Chauvin Sumrall, his high school sweetheart who he married seven years ago, was unable to make the trip because she is due to give birth to a baby boy, their second child, in November.

Jacie, Clelie, 5, and Patti Delcambre watched the events unfold 719 miles away in Anderson, South Carolina. They saw and heard Jon Stewart, B.A.S.S. Nation director, call out the weight of 9 pounds, 13 ounces, making Sumrall the new leader with one angler, Tray Huddleston of Russellville, Arkansas, left to weigh fish.

Sumrall took two bass from the bag and, smiling broadly, showed them to the crowd before walking back to face the music, er, the microphone. He talked about how he had one 1 ¼-pound bass at 1 p.m., then made a fortuitous move on the lake to hook and boat a 2 ½-pound class bass, then filled out his limit on the next half-dozen or so casts as the bass were schooling.

It was happening, he said in so many words into the microphone.

“And I knew how big of a deal it was going to be. But, I knew, I knew, for anything, that would probably get me as close to the Classic as I could get and that’s what I didn’t want to miss out on. I mean, we do this to make the Classic and I can’t imagine how that’s going to be. That was the main goal going into today, just to make the Classic. If this thing pans out, hey, I ain’t going to say any more, man,” Sumrall said to Stewart. He wasn’t being rude. He couldn’t continue because his voice started cracking hard at the word “out.”

“You’re in the Classic. You’re in the Classic,” the emcee said, gesturing with his left arm for emphasis.

Sumrall reacted by smiling widely again, running his hands through his hair, knocking his Toyota cap off. He bent hard at the waist, straightened up and adjusted his sunglasses, then reached down to get his cap.

“Anybody you want to say ‘thanks’ or ‘hi’ to?” Stewart asked.

“Everyone at home,” Sumrall said, taking deeper and deeper breaths. “I mean, I can’t even begin …”

And he bent over again. He was crying.

“Why don’t you take the ‘hot seat’ and we’ll talk in just a little bit,” the understanding emcee said.

Stewart weighed Huddleston’s lone bass, a 2-pound, 5-ounce fish, and the scales closed on the 2017 B.A.S.S. Nation Championship. The prestigious title; a fully rigged Skeeter ZX200 bass boat; a berth in every Bassmaster Elite Series tournament in 2018, worth $16,000l; paid entry fees into any Bassmaster Opens, and a year’s free use of a fully rigged Phoenix bass boat were Sumrall’s.

Oh, and a berth in the Bassmaster Classic March 16-18 at Lake Hartwell, where his dreams came true at a very trying time in his life. Sumrall was location manager, working in Fourchon, for Schlumberger, an oil field company, before being laid off in August.

There were tears Oct. 21 in Anderson and tears in New Iberia.

“I cried pretty hard,” Sumrall said a few days after returning Sunday to New Iberia, his Bass Cat in tow, from South Carolina, adding that he sees the future differently now.

“Actually, that’s part of the good part of the story. After Schlumberger, I did that under those circumstances and that pressure. Now I’ve got doors opening up for me. I’ve just got to make it happen.”

“Oh, yes, we all cried — out of excitement — for him, even Clelie,” Jacie said about the “watch party.” “He’s had a lifelong dream of becoming a pro fisherman and, with everything going on, with the uncertainty of his job, we were unsure if he would be able to even get over there (for the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship), financially.”

The Sumralls know how much he put into his preparation for the biggest tournament of his competitive bass fishing career after qualifying for the past year at the state and regional levels. The Atchafalaya Bassmasters member prefished the lake for a week before it became off-limits.

“Knowing how much he put into this tournament, practicing sunup to sundown, and winning it to go to the Classic, that was so special. When one door closes, we had another door open for other opportunities,” Jacie said.

“It was very emotional. I was unable to travel to get there because we all wanted to be there but the best we could do was watch it like everybody else,” she said.

“We’re very excited for him. He worked so hard to be here. It’s just crazy that it happened. He will have a busy year. He has a very big support system going for him.”

Her goal, she said, is to be at the Classic. She wants to watch him take off every morning with the rest of the field and weigh in every afternoon.

“I can’t wait for the Classic,” her husband said.

Perhaps, just perhaps, another scene like the one on stage in Anderson will play out again March 18.