MYETTE POINT – With the pressure off following a down-to-the-wire race for Angler(s) of the Year on the Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series, the champs relaxed, went out and reeled in the circuit’s biggest payout of the year on Aug. 27.

Austin Theriot of St. Martinville and Gavin Savoy of Catahoula, fresh from winning AOY four days earlier with one clutch bass on Lake Fausse Pointe, had a game plan that worked to perfection that Sunday in the WN Hawg Fights BTS Classic in the Atchafalaya Basin.

Timely decisions and two unlikely artificial lures accounted for their five-bass limit weighing 11.90 pounds, more than enough to claim the first-place prize of $1,825. Theriot and Savoy collected that cash after the weigh-in at Myette Point Landing, plus another $300 for winning AOY.

“It was the icing on the cake,” the 22-year-old Theriot said a few days later.

Savoy, 21, said, “Oh, it was a very, very good feeling. We had a lot of stress taken off our shoulders having won AOY. We were ready to go have fun Sunday … regardless how we did Sunday it was a good year.”

Seventeen boats competed in the Classic, which began at safe daylight and ended at 3 p.m. Ten of the teams weighed bass and nine of them had limits.

The runners-up spot went to Brad Romero and Devin Verret, whose five bass weighing 10.02 pounds netted them $915.

Vic Segura and his grandson, Roman Segura, an eighth-grader on the CHS Fishing Team, nailed down third place with a limit that tipped the digital scale to 9.38 pounds worth a fat payday of $600.

Mike O’Brien and Mike Sinitiere, who won the Classic in September 2021, grabbed the fourth and final payout position when their five bass pushed the digital scale to 9.35 pounds for $420.

“It’s really humbling going out fishing against fishermen like y’all and winning AOY and the Classic and feeling like on top of the world,” Savoy said.

Theriot, who lays asphalt for his father’s company, T&T Asphalt Inc., said winning the end-of-the-year event meant a lot, that it was sweeter than AOY.

“I mean, I guess we proved our point. AOY. It was just something to see in the Basin. You never know what it takes to win these days because 10 pounds has been winning lately in these tournaments,” he said.

And, Theriot said, that’s why they left their second fishin’ hole, where they culled every bass from the first limit, to return way ahead of schedule.

“I told Gavin, ‘We better leave now and make sure we get back in time for the weigh-in because I know we’ve got over 11 pounds and we should be able to do something with that,’ ” he said.

After they prefished the nation’s last great overflow swamp the previous weekend, Theriot expected to catch 11 to 14 pounds of bass. He was relying on the Solunar Table, he said, for the optimal feeding time that Sunday.

The Classic’s winning team boated a five-bass limit at its first stop just off the G.A. Cut. Savoy had the hottest hand there although both bass anglers put good-sized keepers in the livewell of their long, narrow aluminum bass boat.

A 1/4-ounce camo Strike King Bitsy Jig, the only one he had after buying it a few months earlier at Academy Sports + Outdoors, was the main meal ticket for Savoy. Until it snagged and broke off.

“I was wearing out Austin at first. I probably caught five or six to his one. That little jig started off the morning right. Oh, yeah, that little jig gave us a good start,” said the welder at GOM Energy Service.

Just before midday, after fishing around some other proven places, they went to their second-best option because there was a two-hour feeding period, according to Theriot. He had checked during the days leading up to the Classic.

“Feeding time’s a crucial thing this year, especially when the water went down. And it’s so hot. You had to be where they were and it was a right place, right time deal. Sunday we made some very critical moves” on tournament day, Savoy said.

It was Theriot;’s turn to shine with an artificial lure hardly any, if any, Acadiana bass anglers use, a chrome Johnson Silver Minnow. It called up more of the 2 ½- to 2 ¾-pound bass.

“I was running it real slow. All it does is spin on the way in and it has a weedguard. I was literally fishing like I was fishing for redfish. Throw it and reel it in. When it’s on, it’s on, especially when nobody else throws it,” Theriot said, adding both of them also flipped soft plastics. “

Their biggest bass was a 2.81-pounder. The Classic’s big bass winner was Johnny Hester, whose 3.58-pounder took the $200 pot. Hester, who fished with Jerry Marcotte, said he caught it on a spinnerbait in the Duck Lake area on one of his first casts of the morning.