FRANKLIN — Clint “Red” Singleton and Adam Marceaux hooked and boated an early five-bass limit, then upgraded the rest of the day, especially during a late blitz, for a $1,000 payday on Feb. 16.

The Louisiana Bass Cats 15th Invitational Bass Fishing Tournament (also known as the Louisiana Bass Cats Open) winners led a St. Mary Parish onslaught that finished one-two-three as their marsh hotspots one-upped Lake Fausse Pointe. Singleton, 41, of Patterson, and Marceaux, 37, of Berwick, comfortably topped a 34-team field that met in predawn darkness in a heavy rain and launched just before 7 a.m. from Fairfax Foster Bailey Memorial Boat Landing.

Their 15 pounds, 9 ounces, weighed by bass club president Peter Romero of Coteau and recorded by New Iberian Ben Suit, was 2 pounds heavier than the limit brought in by Owen Plaisance and Dwayne Blanco of Patterson, who had 13-4 worth $500. St. Mary Parish bassers Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi and Chris Thornton were third with 12-4 for $300. They were followed by Kevin Suit of New Iberia and Moon Griffon of Lafayette, who checked in with 12-2 pounds worth $200; Rooster Savoy of Catahoula and Jason Pecararo of Lafayette with 11-15 pounds for $150, and New Iberian T.J. Norris and Lawrence Kuznik of Lafayette with 11-13 pounds worth $100.

The day’s biggest bass was a whopper weighing 5-3 brought in by Franklin’s Levi Louviere and Tre Hebert of Berwick, which netted them $320.

“They had some real good anglers out there. I recognized a lot of them,” Singleton said.

Singleton, fishing in his 19-foot Nitro with a 250 ProXS, and Marceaux, who won this tournament five years ago with 19 pounds in the same spot they fished Sunday, started catching keepers early and deposited a limit in the livewell before 7:45 a.m.

“I had a good partner,” Singleton said in an understatement, singling out Marceaux’s impressive flurry that made a  difference late in the day. They had an estimated 13 pounds at the time, he said, noting all of their fish came on either sprayed grass Reaction Innovations Sweet Beavers or Zoom’s Brush Hogs or Baby Brush Hogs.

On three consecutive flips with a sprayed grass Sweet Beaver, Marceaux, a pipefitter at Bay Offshore of Louisiana in Morgan City who has been fishing bass tournaments since 2002, caught 3 ½-, 4- and 3-pound class bass. The first one got Singleton working to cull their catch from the livewell.

“Before he can cull the smallest, I set the hook on another one and flipped it in the boat. It was about 4 pounds. He culled two fish out. When I flipped the third one in the boat, he said, ‘Man, you going to let me fish?’ I said, ‘Keep on doing what you’re doing right now. It’s working,’ ” Marceaux said with a chuckle at the memory.

Singleton was impressed. The cement finisher who co-owns Singleton and Howard Cement has been bass fishing since age 10 and began bass tournament fishing about four years ago.

“He caught those three within 5, 10 yards, on back-to-back-to-back flips,” he said.

“We both did really well. That’s the key to tournament fishing, fishing clean,” he said,.

But they didn’t fish that clean on their big day.

“We lost three fish, 4 pounds each, three or four that size, but we didn’t let that affect us,” Singleton said.

When it counted, Marceaux didn’t miss.

Singleton nearly missed basking in the post-tournament winner’s circle with Marceaux and several fellow St. Mary Parish Elite bass club members under the U.S. 90 overpass in Franklin. He planned to fish with his cousin and business partner, Linzy “Jody” Howard of Morgan City, in the weeks leading up to the tournament. But a close friend of Singleton’s asked him to cook at a crawfish boil scheduled for Feb. 16.

Singleton dropped out of the tournament because, he said, he doesn’t like to go back on his word and Howard hooked up with Andre “Tank” Sampay of Conroe, Texas, formerly of Jeanerette.

When the crawfish boil was scratched, Singleton turned to fellow bass club member Marceaux. They prefished twice and caught 30 bass in the 3-pound range the first time, then the week of the tournament went out one day and caught 20 with the best five going 18 or 19 pounds, he said.

All of those bass bit on bladed jigs. It was a different story Sunday. The winners didn’t get a nibble on a Chatterbait.

“It was a tough bite. The rain kind of cooled off the water a little bit. That kind of kept the big fish from moving up. We just had to switch up what we were doing and wait for the water to warm up a little bit and let the fish get a little more active,” Singleton said.

The tournament was a fundraiser for the New Iberia-based Louisiana Bass Cats. Many Acadiana bass anglers regard it as the official kickoff for the new year.

The highest-finishing member from the hosting Louisiana Bass Cats was Suit, who fished with Lafayette radio personality Griffon. They enjoyed a trip in which they caught eight bass, seven of them keepers.

Most of the bass that hit the scale for them bit on Z-Craws, Suit said. Their biggest, a 2 1/4-pounder late in the afternoon, he said, smacked a Chatterbait thrown by Griffon.

They started out in a few canals without getting a bite on spinnerbaits and Chatterbaits, Suit said. Then the two anglers got a few half-hearted bites on soft plastics punched in vegetation and that keyed them in on the pattern, he said.

“We were really fortunate to come out the way we came out,” he said.

Suit’s sons, Ben and Zach, fished the tournament together. They are the defending Angler(s) of the Year on the Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series that starts March 18. Their father, who won bass club titles in the 1980s, outfished the hard-fishing youngsters in the first big outing of 2020.