BASTROP – A “spur-of-the-moment” bass fishing trip Sunday evening took Wesley Verret Sr. to Bussey Brake Reservoir.

The Websterville outdoorsman, an avid bass angler most of his life, was the guest of Scott Vice of Patterson. In their haste to get here, the fishing buddies/former co-workers forgot a landing net, so visited the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Mer Rouge Road. That landing net came in handy soon after their early morning start Monday because it helped boat a 10.3-pound lunker bass that bit an artificial jig flipped into heavy cover by Verret.

Verret, 62, has caught one bass bigger than 10.3. He got his hands on his PB, an 11.58-pounder, in 2014 while fishing at Toledo Bend.

After catching the 10.3 last week and talking to other bass anglers fishing Bussey Brake Reservoir, Verret may forego future bass fishing trips to Toledo Bend in favor of the lake near Bastrop. Two local bass anglers had 7-, an 8- and 10-pound class bass to their credit.

“Yeah, it’s a big bass lake. It’s awesome. I think I’ll go there before I go to Toledo Bend,” Verret said.

The Bussey Brake Reservoir boat landing is top-notch, he said, with three ramps for launching and picking up a boat.

Vice and Verret started fishing as soon as they launched because the cover looked so appealing right there at the boat landing. They fished the thickest cover they could find, a flipper’s paradise.

“I love that type of fishing … flipping a jig,” Verret said.

Vice, who is in his early 40s, a salesman for Schlumberger, stuck a 3- to 3 ½-pound bass soon after they started fishing.

Meanwhile, Verret went about an hour without getting so much as a nibble. He self-checked and came up with a plan to replace a ¼-ounce black/blue Strike King Hack Attack Jig with a ½-ounce black/blue Hack Attack Jig with a 3-inch long Strike King Rage Bug.

He believed the extra weight was necessary to get the artificial jig down in the thick brush.

Plus, he said, “I was fishing too fast. I said, ‘Let me slow down.’ ”

He flipped the jig, tied to 30-pound test Power Pro braided line spooled on a Shimano Curado, to the base of a willow tree in 6-foot depths, then pulled the artificial lure ever so s-l-o-w-l-y away. One foot past the tree and the jig started moving on its own … inside the jaws of a hawg.

“Once I hooked it, it took off and the drag started pulling hard. They bury in the brush right away. You’ve got to get them out. When it started pulling hard and Scott was getting the net, it turned on a dime and came to the boat,” Verret said.

What worried him, he confided, were the branches of two willow trees in the water between “me and her.”

“That’s why I got nervous,” he said.

Verret worked the big bass to the boat with a 7-foot-2 G. Loomis fishing rod. Vice netted it and put it in the boat, at which time the artificial jig fell out of its mouth.

“We were high-fiving,” he said.

The bass was 24 inches long with a girth of 19 inches, according to Verret, who retired as an expediter for Schlumberger after the oilfield services company took over Cameron Ironworks. The “hawg” obviously has yet to spawn because it was full of eggs.

Later, Vice flipped a soft plastic creature bait into dense cover, felt the tell-tale tap, slammed the hook home and reeled in his PB, a 6 ½-pounder.

The Acadiana bass anglers caught 10 bass, missed others, including another sizable bass.

Verret’s 10.3-pounder was released alive in a pond near Franklin following a long ride from Morehouse Parish to St. Mary Parish inside the livewell of Vice’s Skeeter.

Bussey Brake Reservoir was the site for outstanding public exposure last spring when the Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour held a tournament there and nearby Caney Lake. Bussey Brake Reservoir’s fishery showed out, notably a 12-pound, 14-ounce bass caught on a black/blue Senko by Randy Howell of Guntersville, Alabama, and that piqued the interest of Verret.

The MLF BPT circuit is returning to those two lakes this month — April 24-29.

Bussey Brake Reservoir is the first and only LDWF Fisheries Wildlife Management Area, a 2,200-acre wonderland for bass, bream and sac-a-lait, among other species. There is brush, trees, lily pads and a variety of vegetation to harbor the growing fish population.

International Paper Co. owned Bussey Brake, which was built in the 1950s as an alternative water source for the Louisiana pulp and paper mill. IP donated Bussey Brake and Wham Brake reservoirs to the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in November 2012.

IP owned 620 acres with the remainder of the lake under leases with third parties, which were transferred to LDWF.

The total donation was valued at the time at nearly $8 million and its estimated worth in July 2020 was $10 million.

It was closed for renovations from 2012-2020. The fertile waters were stocked many times by the LDWf, including a large release of 3- to 5-pound hatchery brood stock of largemouth bass in 2017.

Bussey Brake Reservoir was reopened to public fishing in July 2020. Beaucoup tow vehicles, boats and people were lined up after midnight to get in when the gates opened for the grand re-opening at 6 a.m. July 15, 2020.