MYETTE POINT — While Braxton Resweber was looking around and prefishing with his cousin and tournament partner for this past week’s Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series contest in the Atchafalaya Basin, his eyes opened wide when he saw something on his bass boat’s side image sonar.

Resweber, 23, of rural St. Martinville, recognized the feature shown on the marine electronics as a hard bottom in the nation’s last great overflow swamp, which typically has a mud bottom. He had found a shell bed in 4-foot depths near 1-foot of water.

He also saw about 20 fish on the shell bed, plus a “bunch of shad piled on it.” At the time, the UL-Lafayette senior majoring in industrial tech didn’t know for sure if those fish were bass.

Resweber and Austin Theriot, 19, also of rural St. Martinville near Parks, found out what the fish were when they raked some crank baits over the clams. They were bass.

“… We caught two big ones (including a 3 ½-pounder). We left it alone after that,” Resweber said Thursday evening.

“Whenever we saw that shell bed on the side imaging the other day, we got excited,” Theriot said.

They left the shell bed alone until after 5:30 p.m. Wednesday when they took off with the rest of the 20-boat field and returned for the 8:30 p.m. weigh-in with a three-bass limit weighing an unbeatable 9.49 pounds, including one a little more than 4 pounds, to win $450.

The winners needed every ounce to finish ahead of the father-and-son team of Don Shoopman and Jacob Shoopman, both of New Iberia. The Shoopmans checked in with three bass weighing 9 pounds even for $270. The runners-up also boasted the evening bass tournament’s biggest bass, a 4.29-pounder worth another $100.

Another father-and-son team from New Iberia finished third. Tim Worsham, who fished with his dad, Dennis Worsham, carried a limit of bass to the scale that weighed 8.27 pounds for $180.

But the night belonged to Resweber and Theriot, an SLCC student studying aviation mechanics who also works part-time at T&T Asphalt Inc.

“Honestly, I didn’t know our fish were that big until we got to the scale. We were moving (fishing) so fast. You’ve only got two hours to fish. I didn’t think we had one over 4,” Theriot said.

Resweber, a UL-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns Bass Fishing Team member who works part-time at Cabinets Unlimited, said, “I was thinking we probably had 8 ½ pounds because they had big heads but skinny. I didn’t really know what we had.

“It always feels good to win like that. It’s hard competing against those guys. Y’all were close. Y’all are on some good fish.”

The Resweber-Theriot team’s bass were bigger. The winners were proud and pleasantly surprised by the winning pattern.

“It’s not a typical Basin spot. It’s something people don’t do down here. It’s something different,” Resweber said in an understatement about the shell bed he discovered via side imaging.

“Aw, I think it was pretty awesome when we found that,” Theriot said.

On the night of the tournament, Resweber chose a natural shad-colored Rapala Brat crank bait, a square bill, that he had just ordered and received. The small rattle in it apparently was the key while prefishing and the day of the tournament, he said, noting he used a silent crank bait with no success on the scouting trip before switching to the model with a rattle.

The added sound apparently made a difference.

They caught seven keepers, he said. Their biggest bass came toward the end of the bite on a different artificial lure.

Theriot said he was “just dragging” a Zoom Ol’ Monster green pumpkin plastic worm when the big bass bit. He set hook and put it in the boat.

“The wind stopped blowing and they kind of shut off. When we got there the north wind was pumping,” Resweber said.

It was the first win of the season for the two young bass anglers. It should have been their second win but in the WN Hawg Fights BTS first tournament of the year out of Myette Point in the Atchafalaya Basin they were unable to weigh their fish — which, as it turned out, would have been enough to win — because of an oversight. They didn’t put their boat number’s chip on the board before the weigh-in time.

Resweber took that in stride.

“We had another one. That was our fault. Rules are rules. You just have to shake it off and go back again,” he said. “If you fish as much as we do, it happens to everybody. You forget one thing and it costs you a tournament.”

They had all their i’s dotted and t’s crossed Wednesday.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT HAWG FIGHTS

BASS TOURNAMENT SERIES STANDINGS

Top 20

1, (tie) Jacob Shoopman and Don Shoopman, 908. 3, (tie) Ben Suit and Zach Suit, 899. 5, (tie) Bucky Crowson and Kevin Suit, 820. 7, Greer Billeaud, 818. 8, (tie) Johnny Schexnayder and Brandon Sellers, 811. 10, Mike O’Brien, 775. 11, (tie) Chris Vedrines, Danny Bulliard and Jean Trahan, 717. 14, Marlin Hebert, 692. 15, Mike Sinitiere, 690. 16, (tie) Austin Theriot and Braxton Resweber, 662. 18, Buddy Fleming, 659. 19, Brad Romero, 628. 20, Hunter Neuville, 594.