Bass fishing is all about the lure, whether the bass angler is targeting the shallow swamps in Acadiana or the deep glacier lakes in the Northeast.

The perpetual lure intrigues and hooks New Iberia fisherman Mike Sinitiere, who spends as much of his free time as possible in the Atchafalaya Basin or Lake Fausse Pointe but can’t resist fishing, every now and then, the pristine waters in Maine. The Pine Tree State is where his long-time friend and former neighbor, Mark Stroud of Stetson, Maine, lives along the shoreline of Pleasure Lake, locally known as Stetson Lake.

Sinitiere traveled by passenger jet there in early September to renew acquaintances with Stroud and the largemouth/smallmouth bass population in Stetson Lake and Messalonskee Lake. It was his fifth trip to the Northeast since Stroud moved to the region in 2001.

The 59-year-old market development manager for Coca-Cola United Bottling Co. returned to Cajun Country on Sept. 10 rejuvenated after setting the hook on so many fish day and, even, night over the six-day stretch starting Sept. 5. One of those fish was a toothy 8-pound northern pike, the biggest he’s ever caught up there.

“Oh, I think he enjoys the fishing up here. It’s completely different than down there. Fish (largemouth bass) up here don’t get pressured like they do down there,” Stroud said a few weeks later.

More bass, more fun

Bottom line, Sinitiere’s transplanted friend said, Sinitiere likes to catch fish, with an emphasis on catch. There’s always plenty of that kind of action in Maine.

Sinitiere said, bluntly, “They’ve got more fish in Maine than we’ve got here. You never struggle to catch fish there. You know you’re going to catch quantity and quality.”

There’s more to the allure of Maine, he said, noting “the cool weather and low humidity. It’s a very nice change.” After all, he sweated out an oven of a summer in the heart of Cajun Country before escaping to the Northeast.

There was more to it than that. Stroud, 60, and his wife, Debbie, were gracious hosts with a culinary flair.

“And we ate very well. I think they had the menu planned out for the week. One thing we didn’t do was starve,” Sinitiere said, noting one night he enjoyed fried crappie (sac-a-lait) stuffed with chicken and another a savory barbecued meal.

His fifth trip to Maine wouldn’t have been complete without sinking his teeth into a lobster roll at a nearby restaurant one evening. The Maine seafood delicacy is served on a “New Englander” or “Frankfurter” roll, which differs from a standard hot dog bun in that the sides are flat and can be buttered on the outside, then toasted or grilled.

“Oh, yeah, that’s very good. Lobster meat is so sweet,” Sinitiere said.

His last trip was in August 2017. He flew Southwest Airlines then but this time he boarded an American Airlines plane in Lafayette, flew to Dallas, then to Washington before arriving in Bangor, Maine, where Stroud picked him up and took him to the couple’s lakefront home on Stetson Lake.

On the way back Sinitiere went from Bangor to Philadelphia to Dallas to Lafayette. Every flight was booked full and every passenger wore a mask to follow coronavirus pandemic restrictions, he said.

Renewing friendship

Although they communicate by phone or text once a week, it was time, as his buddy said, to renew the friendship this year.

Stroud, who was born in Lake Charles, lived in New Iberia 11 years before relocating to Dover Foxcroft, Maine, in 2001. He moved to the shoreline of scenic Stetson Lake in 2016. There is a bald eagle’s nest in one of the yard’s trees.

He is a nurse anesthetist at Northern Lights Mayo Hospital in Dover Foxcroft. He worked in the same capacity at the old Dauterive Hospital in New Iberia two years before taking a job in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He returned two years later to New Iberia and worked nine years at Iberia Medical Center.

The Strouds lived in a corner house across the street from Sinitiere, who lives on Barrow Street. The two outdoorsmen became friends who shared a common interest – bass fishing – and went as often as possible in and around the Atchafalaya Basin.

The angling bond has remained strong. At Stroud’s urging, Sinitiere made his first bass fishing trip north for a visit four years after Stroud moved to Maine.

Stroud rides the waters in a 21-foot Ranger G2 with a 250-h.p. Evinrude, his fourth boat since moving to Maine.

On the recent trip they fished Stetson Lake four of the six days and called on Messalonskee Lake twice. In the past, the bassers also targeted Penobscot River, a smallmouth haven, but a drought in the region has water levels low, Stroud said, noting Stetson Lake was 2 feet below full pool.

Oddly, they caught only 11 smallmouth bass. Sinitiere was OK with that.

“I mean, they’ve got big, green ones. That made up for it,” he said, adding his biggest of the trip was a 4-pounder and that he reeled in “a bunch of 3 1/2s.”

One day they were talking about the full moon the night before. Sinitiere asked his old friend if they ever did any nighttime bass fishing. Stroud said no.

They decided to try it that evening and went out about 6:30 p.m. They returned approximately 2 ½ hours later after getting an estimated 30 bites, catching and releasing probably 20 bass averaging 2 to 3 pounds, all on Whopper Ploppers.

Catching past dark-thirty

“The night fishing was awesome. It was very dark. You’d throw a Whopper Plopper out and hear the blowup. We missed quite a few of them, or they missed us,” Sinitiere said.

“I’ve never done that. I’ve thought about it but never did it. The first night (they tried it again later in the week) we did really, really good,” Stroud said, remembering the novel experience. “It was pitch black. You couldn’t see nothing. You would just hear it (the sound of a bass smashing the sputtering topwater bait).”

Sinitiere, who used his friend’s fishing rod and reel combinations, threw a bone-colored Whopper Plopper most of the time. On the second day he got more than he bargained for … the biggest northern pike of his fishing career, at Messalonskee Lake.

“Ah, that was a surprise. I didn’t know what I had. I threw out a Whopper Plopper expecting a smallmouth. Then I heard a big explosion. It (the fish) ran under the boat, then it broke close. Then we realized it was a pike. Oh, yeah, it was a big one,” Sinitiere said.

‘That’s the biggest one that’s come in my boat. I’ve seen bigger than he caught that day,” Stroud said.

The presence of northern pike is the reason he throws all of his topwaters on braided line, he said. Otherwise, he’d lose all the topwaters.

“You have to up here,” he said.

Sinitiere put down the Whopper Plopper one day on Stetson Lake. The fish weren’t interested in something up top. He picked up a ¼-ounce green pumpkin Strike King Bitsy Bug Jig with a similarly Berkley Powerbait Chigger Craw soft plastic trailer.

The New Iberian has a new favorite artificial lure after catching bass after bass on that Bitsy Bug.

Sinitiere dances a jig

“Yeah, he (Stroud) recommended it and they weren’t hitting topwater. That’s probably his favorite bait. So I tied one on,” he said. “I just felt some weight. I felt the weight, set the hook and they were on.”

Stroud chuckled and said, “It’s funny because Mike never throws a jig. I was laughing at him.”

Working an artificial jig in the grass paid off for both of them.

“What Mike and I do is typically throw different things (to get a pattern),” he said.

That surprised him because usually when it’s cloudy moving baits (Chatterbaits and topwaters) are king but that day they caught more fish on jigs in the grass.

Sinitiere truly enjoyed the breathtaking scenery and Mother Nature, particularly the loons. On one trip an adult loon was swimming nearby with two baby loons. Suddenly, it began squealing an alarm, as loons do when threatened. A bald eagle majestically swooped down to pick up a baby loon for a meal. And missed.

“That was cool,” he said.

If he thought that was cool, he ought to take Stroud up on his latest invitation.

“I keep telling him he’ll have to come up and go ice fishing. I bought all the gear,’ he said, noting he catches bass and crappie through a hole in the ice.

Hmmmmm. That’s another lure to fishing.