LOREAUVILLE – One of the winningest two-man teams the past few years in local bass tournaments big and small got together again June 17 with predictable results in the Atchafalaya Basin.

Cousins Braxton Resweber and Austin Theriot, both of St. Martinville, made it a winning and profitable reunion in the inaugural Louisiana Bass Cats Father’s Day Weekend Open out of Myette Point Boat Landing. They capitalized on a shad spawn around cypress trees early that Saturday morning and got the right bite from the right bass to win with a five-fish limit weighing 11.73 pounds worth $1,000.

While it wasn’t a typical winning weight for early summer in the Atchafalaya Basin, it was enough with bassin’ success a little on the slow side for many bass anglers.

“We didn’t even think we’d be close. Whenever we weighed in and they said we were leading, we looked at each other and said, ‘How?’ I thought it’d take 15 (pounds). That’s why I was surprised. We had (nearly) 12 pounds and in first,” Theriot said.

His cousin agreed and said, “I felt surprised to be honest but you never know. When we got back to the landing a few people told us they had 12 pounds. Well, we didn’t have 12 pounds.”

Resweber, 26, enjoyed getting back in the swing of things. He has been sidelined by a second back surgery since March. Fishing that recent tournament brought together the two young all-around outdoorsman who emerged as the Angler(s) of the Year on the highly competitive Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Circuit in 2021.

After the safe daylight takeoff and arrival at their fishin’ hole, the right-sized bass bit fast and furious for the first 30 minutes to an hour, they said. They had prefished the spot in the afternoons and evenings but never in the morning.

“We got there and the fish were blowing up everywhere. It was cool. Actually, it was a shad spawn. We probably caught 15 fish in that first hour. It was fun. We caught a good bit of fish. We had basically our five fish that we weighed in,” Theriot said.

“We got a good start. We said, ‘Well, damn, we’ve got a good start. We’ll cull throughout the day.’ But it didn’t work out that way. We culled twice all day (after the initial flurry) but only two hundredths of an ounce, barely nothing,” Resweber said.

Still, it was enough to finish first in the 26-boat field and collect the guaranteed prize of $1,000.

An ultra-slim margin of .08 pounds separated the winners from the runner-up team of Mike Sinitiere and Don Shoopman, both of New Iberia. Their five-bass limit, anchored by a 4.24-pounder caught by Shoopman, weighed 11.65 pounds worth $600.

Right behind the runner-up team was the third-place team of young St. Martin Parish bass anglers Gavin Savoy and Chris Berard, whose five bass weighed 11.41 pounds for $400.

Tony Sinitiere and his father, Anthony Sinitiere, boasted the biggest bass of the day, a 4.45-pound “hawg” worth $260. The younger Sinitiere said the big’un bit on a Missile Baits “D” Bomb flipped into a grass bed in a pipeline in the Bayou Pigeon area.

Resweber and Theriot, a 22-year-old operator for his father’s business, T&T Asphalt Inc., hooked and boated their winning limit on smokin’ shad-colored Zoom Swimming Super Fluke. The paddletail soft plastic triggered bites around cypress trees.

“You had to hit the tree, for sure,” Theriot said.

“We didn’t know they’d have a shad spawn. We each had a couple packs of swimbaits. We each had a couple packs of swimbaits and we went through them real quick. I’d just throw the used ones on the bottom of the boat when they went bad. When I ran out I tried to use them,” Resweber said. “We caught on spinnerbaits, too, but I tied on a swimbait and caught one on my first cast.”

After the first hour, Theriot said, “We just put our head down and fished. A lot of them were hitting and missing our baits after the first hour.”