We wish good fortune and a bright future to two young men who left New Iberia this past week to pursue dreams and careers in Texas.

I’ve said my goodbyes to the Suit brothers, Ben, 31, and Zach, 26. And it wasn’t easy saying that word to people who mean a lot to you.

It never is. Last year Don Naquin of New Iberia retired and moved with his wife, Valerie, in April to Villanow, Georgia. In May 2020, Jeff and Mary Poe, respected charter boat captains on Calcasieu Lake, picked up and and resumed their career at Dauphine Island, Alabama.

They all were good friends. This one, though, is even more personal.

Family, friends and beaucoup bass fishermen here and around the region know Ben and Zach as good “sticks,” as they say, and good, polite young men on and off the water. Ben got the opportunity he has been hopeful for in the insurance business and moved Saturday to Orange, Texas. Zach and his wife, Melinda, left Friday to relocate to Denton, Texas, after she was accepted into the chiropractic program at Parker University.

I met the Suits’ dad, Kevin Suit, soon after moving here in 1976. He played high school basketball and baseball at Catholic High School and as a sportswriter I covered his games for The Daily Iberian.

Kevin also fished. We fished together a whole lot and against each other in a local bass club.

My good friend and I went our separate ways – you know, life – for a while but stayed in touch. Kevin and Ines Maria “Nena” Bedia Suit had two sons and June Boutte Shoopman and I had two sons and 30-plus years ago we became neighbors. Well, he lives about 1 ½ blocks away.

Ben and Zach got into fishing, naturally, and they befriended my youngest son, Jacob. Jacob was honored to be a groomsman at Zach and Melinda’s wedding on July 24, 2020. They, we, fish together as much as possible.

They learned well from their parents. Like the winner he is, Kevin rebounded from a career setback in the oilfield industry and has worked for years as lead in the fishing tackle department at Field & Stream in Lafayette. Nena has been a highly regarded Spanish language teacher for many years at New Iberia Senior High.

I knew the brothers’ grandparents, including his grandmother, Margaret Suit of New Iberia, who has lived into her early 90s. I still hold the utmost esteem for Mrs. Suit and her husband, the late Jerry D. Suit, a hard-working executive in the oilfield industry who moved here from Oklahoma. They taught Kevin and his brother, Jerry Suit, the joys of fishing for bass, sac-a-lait and bream.

I also knew and respected Nena’s parents. The late Rafael Bedia — a brilliant mathematician who left behind a successful design civil engineer career in Havana to escape the Castro regime in Cuba in 1960 — died at age 92. Bedia’s wife, Ines Alvarez Bedia, who helped her husband bring their young family to America, preceded him in death.

The “boys,” as I call them, followed their lead, worked hard and never gave up.

Bass fishing competition, it seems, brings out the best in Ben and Zach from Lake Fausse Pointe to the Atchafalaya Basin to Henderson Lake to Lake Sam Rayburn to Toledo Bend, where their uncle, Jerry Suit, and his wife live on the Texas side.

Their track record in the late 2010s speaks for itself. Ben won back-to-back Angler of the Year titles in the highly competitive Louisiana Bass Cats in 2018-19. He joined the local bass club in 2015 and qualified six times for the Louisiana Top Six/Best Six.

His bid to three-peat was thwarted by his brother in 2020. It went down to the seventh and last tournament at Lake Sam Rayburn, where Ben fished with his dad, a former AOY in the Basin Boys Bass Club, and Zach fished with Mike Sinitiere of New Iberia.

They teamed up to win Angler(s) of the Year on the Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series in 2018-19. Jacob and I ended the streak in a seesaw battle with them in 2020.

Ben, Zach and their dad have been just as skilled and successful at catching speckled trout and redfish as bass. Their big honey hole for many years isn’t around here. It’s 101 miles southeast in the marsh around Dulac. They pretty much forget about bass fishing and hammer those saltwater fish, weather and water conditions permitting, from October into December.

Like their father, Ben and Zach played high school baseball at CHS. Both brothers pitched and were good enough to pitch in college.

Ben pitched in 2008-2009 at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, then from 2009-2013 at Louisiana State University-Shreveport, where he graduated with a degree in Business Management — Land and Energy Management.

Unfortunately, an elbow injury and subsequent surgery shut down his younger brother’s career after one year at the University of Texas-Tyler. Zach continued his education at UL-Lafayette.

After college, it was time to earn a living. Ben, who worked as an insurance agent intern from January 2015 to this month at Eric Guillory State Farm in Broussard, will open Ben Suit State Farm in January 2022 in Orange.

Zach’s knowledge about fishing tackle paid off as a personable salesman at Academy Sports + Outdoors for five years in Lafayette. Eight months ago he joined his brother at Eric Guillory State Farm.

That’s history. It’s what’s ahead that counts. Good luck.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.