Veteran Hawg Fighters hook up again, win Wednesday’s tournament with 8.18 pounds

Published 9:30 am Sunday, May 24, 2020

LOREAUVILLE — When Carroll Delahoussaye heard the splash of a big fish, then a call for the landing net, he knew something big was happening.

Delahoussaye’s Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series partner rarely, if ever, makes that call when there’s a bass on the business end of his fishing line, even in a bass tournament. So Delahoussaye did a doubletake when he heard it Wednesday from his good friend Danny Bulliard.

“That might be the first time he told me to grab the net. He usually doesn’t say anything,” Delahoussaye said Thursday evening, less than 24 hours following a first-place finish by the veteran St. Martinville bass anglers in the makeup tournament on Lake Fausse Pointe out of Marsh Field Boat Landing.

“I heard a fish splash. He said, ‘I think you better get the net.’ I said, ‘I got it!’” Delahoussaye said. “He (the big bass) was strong. He pulled the hell out of Danny’s line. That was a long fish. It must have been a big fish during the spawn. That’s a pretty fish.”

That 5.02-pound bass eventually went into the landing net and anchored the three-fish limit the accomplished team put on the electronic scale to win the fourth WN Hawg Fights BTS tournament of 2020. Their 8.18 pounds topped a 24-boat field that fished the “makeup” tournament, one of two postponed during the height of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

It was Delahoussaye’s first Hawg Fights tournament of the year and the fourth for Bulliard. Delahoussaye, 70, had critical health issues earlier in the year and sat out the first part of the season. Bulliard, 72, who fished the first three contests with his grandson, Matthew Bulliard, said it was great to get back on the water with his fishin’ buddy.

“Well, we still fish the same. When I was with my grandson, he depended on me for where we were going (to fish). With Carroll, we talk it out. It works good,” the Cajun Chef Products Inc. plant manager said Thursday morning.

Their chemistry paid off with an Angler of the Year title a few years ago and a WN Hawg Fights BTS Classic victory in September 2019 out of Fairfax Foster Bailey Memorial Landing in Franklin. They did their homework and pulled their winning five-bass limit from one of their favorite places in the Atchafalaya Basin.

The common denominator over the years is experience, prefishing and coming up with a game plan. They had one for Wednesday and won $540 for first place and another $120 for big bass of the day.

“We got back in the swing of things,” Bulliard said.

“We had a plan,” said Delahoussaye, recently retired athletic director at St. Martinville Senior High and the school’s former longtime head football coach who won state championships in 1981 and 1984.

They started formulating the game plan after a trip Sunday, then Delahoussaye reinforced it Tuesday afternoon.

“Danny told me to go check a few places. He told me to go to a drain first, it wasn’t too far of a run, and told me to go fish Coon Slough,” Delahoussaye said. “We thought we could catch (a total) of three fish in two places.”

He said they were the first boat in Coon Slough on Wednesday. The 5-pounder was their first fish.

“After Danny caught the 5 pounds, we knew if we could catch two decent fish we’d have 8 pounds and we’d have a chance. That’s the way it worked out,” he said, noting they caught two keepers there and two keepers in their secondary spot.

“We could have done better, too,” Bulliard said, adding their narrow fishing spot at their first stop was muddied when a competitor ran his boat through it.

“Thank God we did our damage before that,” he said.

They caught their bass on spinnerbaits and black buzz baits, he said.

Lance Moss and Bo Amy cashed in with a second-place finish. Their three bass totaled 7.88 pounds for $324.

Zach Suit and Ben Suit, defending Angler(s) of the Year, were third with 6.18 pounds worth $216.

The next WN Hawg Fights BTS tournament is Wednesday at Lake Fausse Pointe out of Marsh Field Boat Landing. Entry fee is $60 and must be paid before 1 p.m. Wednesday at Cajun Guns & Tackle.