LOREAUVILLE – Devin Verret’s eventful spring got even better Wednesday when he teamed with Dylan Kelly to win the fifth Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series contest on May 17.

Verret and Kelly, who have been fishing the popular evening circuit for a few years, saw his second destination in Lake Fausse Pointe pay off big time when Kelly busted a 4.54-pound bass within five minutes that anchored their unbeatable three-bass limit weighing 7.44 pounds worth $540. The 4.54-pounder was the biggest bass of the evening and worth another $120.

“Finally. It was nice to win one in the lake because the lake’s my back yard for me, you know,” Verret said the day after the tournament held out of Marsh Field Boat Landing. “It feels amazing. I haven’t felt that since last year. The last two tournaments we haven’t been doing well. We put in a lot of hours.”

Verret graduated from Loreauville High School on May 16, the day before the WN Hawg Fights BTS, then got an A+ making the right decision for their second stop on what he considers his home lake. After spending approximately 45 minutes at their first stop, they left with one 13-inch bass.

“We decided to make a move and cover more water,” he said about the boat ride to a long borrow pit along the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee.

“We packed up and took the run to the stump field and decided to cover as much water as we could and started bustin’ them with a buzz bait. In the first five minutes, Devin threw a buzz bait by the bank and that’s when the big bass bit … 4.5 pounds.

“Once that was in the boat, all we knew was we needed one more for a limit and we’d be good. I caught our second small one for our limit.”

Verret and Kelly, who also graduated from LHS (Class of ’22) and works at an area machine shop, put the buzz baits to work some more and boated more keepers, including two solid bass caught by Verret.

Game, set and match.

The closet team to the winners in the 24-boat field was that of Don Shoopman and Jacob Shoopman, the circuit’s Angler(s) of the Year in 2015 and 2020. The father-and-son team’s limit weighed 6.76 pounds for $324.

Dusty Romero and Brylan Gary’s three bass weighed 6.50 pounds worth $216.

Verret and Dylan, fishing out of a 90-h.p.-powered Tracker aluminum bass boat, enjoyed their best finish as a team after finishing second in a WN Hawg Fights BTS tournament last summer in the Atchafalaya Basin out of Bayou Benoit Boat Landing. Verret and Garett Blanchard won the circuit’s tournament last spring at Lake Martin.

Verret, a first baseman who played four years with the LHS Tigers, a run that ended a few weeks ago just short of the state semifinals, said the big bass was the highlight of the evening. It was duly celebrated the moment it was safely in their hands.

“We went crazy. I’m surprised nobody heard us,” Verret said. “When he hooked up, he went silent and didn’t say a word. I knew it was a big one. I went put it in the net. We went crazy. We were high-fiving and everything.”

They left the red-hot stretch of shoreline at 7:45 p.m. to get back for the 8:10 p.m. weigh-in. A few minutes later the youngest team in the field enjoyed the win.