CYPREMORT POINT — When the clock ticked to 7 p.m. the last day of September, the Cypremort Invitational Fishing Association crowned new winners in its annual tournament.

The Redfish Division’s champ has been a long-time crew member aboard one of the winningest boats around. Jacob Fisher of St. Martinville boated a 31.44-pound redfish on Aug. 5, the first day of the 13th annual St. Thomas More Fishing Rodeo.

The captain and crew of Fish Karma, a 24-foot Blue Wave, dominated the CIFA tournament that started July 9, the Saturday after the Iberia Rod & Gun Club Saltwater Fishing Rodeo. In addition to Fisher’s first-place monster, the boat boasted a second-place finisher with Hayden Amy’s 30.59-pounder, followed by Perry Scott’s 29.52-pound redfish and Brooks Amy’s 26.76-pounder.

Josh St. Germain on Quality Time nailed down the fifth and last place with a 26.70-pound bull red.

“It’s pretty awesome. This is the first time I ever got in it (CIFA). They’ve been in it before,” he said about the Amys and Scott.

While Fisher celebrated winning the Redfish Division, Quintin Marks of Rayne, who has a camp at Cypremort Point, finished the tournament with the heaviest fish in the Speckled Trout Division, a 4.05-pounder he caught while fishing alone Aug. 29. The one-time avid bass angler said he was proud of his first big saltwater fishing victory.

Fisher, 36, a chemical manufacturing supervisor for Schlumberger, will remember for a long, long time the day he and his crewmates caught those big redfish at Boxcar Reef.

“We had a blast. We’ve caught them bigger before but we knew we had a good chance in that division,” he said about the STM fishing rodeo’s bull red division, which he won. Then the crew hustled over to weigh it at Dago’s Mobil & Grocery, the CIFA weigh station in Lydia.

For sure, Fish Karma’s captain and crew were struggling in the tournament’s speckled trout and “slot” redfish divisions that weekend, he said. They welcomed the flurry of big, hungry redfish.

“I think Papa Perry caught the first one. I caught the second one and Brooks caught one after that. Hayden got his the second day,” Fisher said.

He has been fishing aboard the board, which also fishes the Iberia Rod & Gun Club Saltwater Fishing Rodeo, the Southcentral Fishing Association and the discontinued Kay-Cee Saltwater Fishing Rodeo for 14-15 years. The former avid bass angler met Brooks Amy, who’s married to Fisher’s third cousin, started talking about saltwater fishing, when on a saltwater fishing trip with him and got hooked.

“We have a great little team. Brooks and Hayden and Perry. We couldn’t be better on the water. Catch or no catch, we still have a good time,” Fisher said.

“The main thing is to thank Brooks and Hayden and Perry for letting me join their family and fish with them like I do. It’s definitely an honor,” he said. “We have a good time. We go out and catch fish most of the time. We give it our all on the water.”

They caught the redfish that dominated the CIFA division on Carolina-rigged live croakers, he said. It wasn’t easy.

“We had to fight off some big sharks, 4- to 5-feet, but the redfish really bit that day,” he said.

Marks, the Rayne outdoorsman who frequently stays at his camp at Cypremort Point, went fishing Aug. 29 by himself in his 22-foot Skeeter Bay Boat. He didn’t go far to catch the eventual winner in the Speckled Trout Division.

His first stop on the overcast day with no wind was at The Hammock, where he started flippin’ a few piers with a lemonhead Matrix Shad on a 3/16-ounce jighead. He caught a few speckled trout before setting the hook on what he believed was a gafftop “because it wouldn’t come up.”

“Then I saw the tail and a lot of spots. I said, ‘I don’t want to lose it,’” Marks said.

The fight was short and sweet but it seemed much longer.

He had flipped the soft plastic 20 feet from his boat with on an old flippin’ stick he used to use for bassin’.

“It was 15 or 20 seconds or so but it seemed like 20 minutes. I wasn’t going to boat flip that one. I ran to the back of the boat, got the net and scooped it up,” he said.

Marks took a photo before depositing it in an ice chest and texted it to Lorrie Ardoin, his neighbor at Cypremort Point. Ardoin, a charter fishing boat captain, finished second in the CIFA tournament in 2020 and has helped him learn how to fish in and around Vermilion Bay.

“I sent a picture to Lorrie. He said, ‘You’ve got to get to Dago’s and weigh that.’ He actually said, ‘That’s a 3.9 to 4.1-pound fish.’ I said, ‘OK.’ He knows the size of his trout,” Marks said.

His speckled trout rose to the top of the leaderboard in that division and stayed.

“It was really exciting. I think a 2.8 or 2.9 had the lead at the time. I knew it was bigger than that. I called my wife,” he said about Da’un Marks, who fishes with him as much as possible.

The 58-year-old Halliburton Co. employee didn’t think it’d stay in first place through Sept. 30. His wife checked almost daily.

“I know a lot of folks around here definitely were trying to top it. I know Lorrie was trying,” he said.

Heck, he said, he was trying to top it, too. He made at least a dozen more trips in an effort to catch a heavier speckled trout, to no avail.

The last week of the tournament was beset with windy weather, so he reckoned it’d be difficult to get on a bigger fish. He reckoned right.

There was a change in the Top 5 standings on the final day, though. Ty Bonin’s 3.80-pound speckled trout jumped into second place.

Bonin, who finished third in last year’s CIFA contest, had a fourth-place fish at 2.64 pounds before that day.

Rounding out the Speckled Trout Division’s Top 5 were Jason Moss, fourth with a 2.96-pounder, and Jonathan Reaux, fifth with a 2.63-pound fish.