MYETTE POINT – Dusty Romero’s love for bass fishing, particularly competitive bass fishing, has been put to the test this year as he fishes the Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series.

After undergoing major back surgery in 2014, the New Iberia outdoorsman was out of the game until he rejoined the circuit in 2023. Much to his dismay, several of his favorite fishin’ holes have been impacted by siltation that, coupled with current low water conditions, make it a monumental challenge to navigate and catch bass inside the Atchafalaya Basin.

Romero and other WN Hawg Fights BTS anglers in an 18-boat field fished the 11th of 12 regular-season tournaments out of Myette Point Landing in the nation’s last great overflow swamp on Aug. 9. The heat further wilted his spirits, already low due to subpar trips this year from both Bayou Benoit Landing and Myette Point Landing.

“It’s changed so much. I’ve been so frustrated. I was dreading heading to Myette Point. I scouted a week earlier with my wife (Tricia Romero). I wasn’t looking forward to it. I don’t know many people who were,” Romero said a few days after he teamed up with co-worker Brylan Gary of Erath, changed his luck with an oldie but goldie spinnerbait and won the 11th tournament handily with a three-bass limit weighing 7.05 pounds worth $405.

Romero and Gary also boasted the biggest bass of the evening, a 2.69-pounder. That bigger bass was his second catch at his first stop in a nearby borrow pit along the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee.

“We were culling by 6:30. I’ve had such a horrible year. I needed that bad. I bet I caught 15 fish. It was a blessed trip,” Romero said.

The 53-year-old shipping and receiving manager for Frederick’s Machine & Tool Shop said he began fishing Hawg Fights in 1993. One of his favorite baits then and now is a Humdinger.

That spinnerbait proved to be the game-changer because the bass, which averaged 2 pounds each, hammered it in the late afternoon hours.

“The ol’ faithful Humdinger. There’s just something about that spinnerbait. In the Basin and the lake (Lake Dauterive-Fausse Pointe), they catch fish,’ he said, noting he used a ¼-ounce white model with a gold/silver blade combination.

The excessive heat continued to dog him and everyone else on the water. That big bass “almost went belly up” in the livewell, so he babied it for the last hour, including putting it back in the water in attempts to revive it.

“But she stayed alive,” he said.

Romero, who fished the old BFL circuit as a co-angler when he was younger, said the Spillway has changed so much since 2014 he’s been looking for accessible places to fish via Google Earth. He chose the borrow pit he wound up fishing that Wednesday.

The runners-up team’s success was a tribute to a veteran local bass angler who is showing the ropes to his grandson, who has been bitten bad by the bass fishing bug.

Vic Segura and Roman Segura, a Catholic High School student who plans to join the two-year-old CHS Fishing Team, finished second with three bass weighing 6.04 pounds for $243. The elder Segura was a proud grandpapa smiling ear to ear while his grandson weighed the bass and later as the youngster collected his first-ever payout.

The father-and-son team of Don Shoopman and Jacob Shoopman cashed in for the fourth time in nine outings with a hard-earned limit weighing 5.82 pounds. The two-time WN Hawg Fights BTS Team of the Year (2015 and 2020) won $162.

All eyes are on the ongoing race for Team of the Year. Two St. Martin Parish bass anglers, Austin Theriot and Gavin Savoy, who have led most of the season, remain atop the point standings with 983 points going into the 12th and final tournament Aug. 23 at Marsh Field Landing in Lake Fausse Pointe. The frontrunners have a 45-point lead over Brandon Sellers and Blaine Miller, who are in the runners-up spot with 938 points and followed by John Gordon, with 933 points, and Brad Romero, with 921.