Peyton Grizzaffi of Stephensville, a freshman on the Morgan City High School Fishing Team, stands proudly after collecting one of two pay envelopes Feb. 25 in the Top Rod Big Bass Classic. Flanking the young bass angler are the tournament's interim director Neil Carret, right, and Don Naquin. Grizzaffi had a first-place bass in the third hour, a 2.68-pounder, and a second-place bass in the second hour,a 2/08-pounder, to win $400.

LOREAUVILLE — With plenty of saltwater fishing awards and paychecks behind him, Bo Amy started setting hook early on a bass big enough to claim Big Bass Money Champion 2018 in the Top Rod Big Bass Classic.

Amy won the first hour with a 3.46-pound bass he hooked about 7:15 a.m., 15 minutes after the tournament unique to this region started on Lake Fausse Pointe. The local angler added a third-place bass weighing 2.28 pounds in the fourth hour and capped the day with a 4.26-pound bass that was second in the eighth hour to pocket a total of $500.

While Amy collected the coveted all-around prize, Albert Vincent of Parks drove the steel home at mid-morning on a “hawg” big enough to be the prestigious 2018 Big Bass of the Year. His sizeable bass, which weighed 5.84 pounds, was weighed in in the fourth hour.

Those were the highlights of the latest annual fundraising event brought to the Teche Area many years ago by the late Elvis Jeanminette. Forty-seven boats headed out from Marsh Field Boat Landing, many before or around sunrise, to fish for bass big enough to weigh in hourly from 7 a.m. through 3 p.m.

A total of $4,000 was paid for the first-, second- and third-biggest bass each hour. Entry fee was $100 per boat.

The tournament, under the direction this year of Neil Carret of Carencro, will benefit the Lydia Cancer Association and the Hookin’ Slabs Youth Fishing Club. Carret and Don Naquin of New Iberia, who helped him with preparations for the event, announced the date for next year’s Top Rod Big Bass Classic as Feb. 23.

“I think we had a great tournament,” Carret said.

Amy, who specializes in speckled trout on the saltwater fishing scene, turns his attention to bass for the first two or three months each year, mostly at Lake Fausse Pointe. As a thread rep for VAM USA, an oil field-related company, he works on 24-hour call and had to take PTO to fish the Top Rod Big Bass Classic and, a day earlier, the Legends on the Lake Tournament (see related story on this page.)

“Well, my dad (New Iberian Troy Amy) had fished the lake about a week-and-a-half before the tournament and caught some nice fish but we were going to go where he caught them (for the TRBBC) to start off the day but decided to go to the Big Dogleg first and it paid off. We caught the first three fish we weighed in in Big Dogleg and two stayed on the board and one got knocked off,” the younger Amy wrote in an email message Thursday night from an offshore oil rig. “Then we went fish Texaco canals. I missed one that probably would have took big bass. I never saw her but she was pulling drag and I have never had a bass in the lake pull drag like she did. But she hung me up and I lost her. Then we went to the spot my dad was on those nice fish and I ended up catching one but it was the right one and took second place with her. I figured the 4.26 would place but didn’t know where at.”

He said all the fish he caught came on a KVD Rodent, a soft plastic creature bait.

Vincent, the big bass pot recipient, and Randy Carter of Parks methodically fished on the levee side of a long borrow pit along the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee. They eased along during a mid-morning rain flippin’ and pitchin’.

Vincent was using a Strike King Rage Tail Bug, a soft plastic creature hooked Texas-style and tied to 30-pound braid line.

“Right after the rain stopped and the wind died down, close to 10 o’clock, is when I caught it,” he said, savoring every bit of the memory.

“After the rain came through, I flipped really close to the bank. What she did, I had flipped the bait, let it sit three or four seconds, then she nudged it. She just tapped it and started taking off with it. That’s when I set the hook on it,” he said.

The veteran bass angler got the “hawg” to the boat, where his partner netted it.

“We knew we had a good one. The first thing we did was take a picture. Then we took out the scale and weighed her,” he said.

They ran in to BBC headquarters to weigh that bass and a 4-pound class bass Carter caught 10-15 minutes after the 5.84 was caught by Vincent.

Vincent and Carter had to fight a case of nerves as they waited four more hours to see if that 5.84-pounder would be the biggest of the day. One of the new features for this year’s contest was an extra $250, donated by Coca-Cola United, for the heaviest bass overall of the Big Bass Classic.

Johnny Manor weighed in a 4.82-pounder that won the sixth hour. Then Mike O’Brien, a local bass angler, took the eighth hour with a 5-pound even bass.

Those were the closest big’uns but no cigar. Vincent pocked an extra $250.

Their boat took home $750 because, approximately 15 minutes after Vincent’s big bass went into the livewell Clark boated a 3.80-pound bass that they weighed in in the fifth hour. Clark’s bass was first for that hour and worth another $250.

It was a good payday for anyone, particularly two bassers who have only been fishing a handful of times on Lake Fausse Pointe.

“Actually, it was our fifth time actually fishing in the lake. We went a couple weekends before but hadn’t got on any big fish like that,” he said.

They fished the Legends on the Lake Tournament the day before the Top Rod Big Bass Classic and scraped together a five-fish limit going about 8 pounds. Their day got brighter after the weigh-in, though, when Legends organizers gave away three free entries into the Big Bass Classic.

One of them went to Vincent, who was unaware of the tournament with a format unique to this region (the closest is the Bob Sealy tournament at Toledo Bend).

“That was the very first time we fish that tournament (Top Rod Big Bass Class). I really didn’t know what it was all about. One of my buddies asked if I wanted to go Saturday and I ended up going and won a free entry fee for Sunday,” he said.