FRANKLIN – A 35-year-old New Iberia bass angler knocked off the rust after several months away from bass fishing and hit the brakes on the way to a grand day on the water Feb. 18 for the 19th annual Louisiana Bass Cats Invitational Tournament, also known as the LBC Open.

Jacob Shoopman of Lafayette and his dad, Don Shoopman of New Iberia, forged a five-bass limit slowly but steadily before midday, then culled four times in 1 ½ hours on their way to winning the kickoff event for major bass tournaments in Acadiana. The five bass the younger Shoopman carried to the scale weighed 14 pounds, 13.5 ounces, good enough to top a 22-boat field that left at safe daylight on a bitterly cold morning from Fairfax Foster Bailey Memorial Landing.

The Shoopmans won $900 for first place and another $210 for Jacob’s 5.00-pound bass, the tournament’s lunker bass caught around 11:45 a.m.

“It was a fun time. I feel like that tournament being early in the year doesn’t suit my normal fishing, just slowing down and trying to pick apart cover. We just tried to slow down as much as we could. It isn’t something we do very often,” he said in an understatement as the team is widely known for its success with Superbait buzz baits.

“It helped that we had a pattern going in that my partner found in a few different spots. I think the key was that big fish, the only one we caught off a bed that day. We were lucky and blessed to get that bite right there.

“Once we had that one in the boat, I knew we had a decent shot at winning the way conditions were that day.”

It was all high blue skies after a partly cloudy post-cold front morning with 35-degree air temps at takeoff time. The Shoopmans, riding in a new hull after being without their Ranger RT198P powered by a 150-h.p. Mercury Pro XS from late August to Mardi Gras Tuesday, took a 40-minute ride to Lake Fausse Pointe.

After high north winds overnight and the day before, the lake dropped an estimated foot and the water temp cooled at least 10 degrees in places into the low 50s.

That drastic weather change was a challenge overcome by Kevin Hebert of Morgan City, who fished alone and finished second with five bass weighing 13 pounds, 9.5 ounces, for a $540 payday.

Kevin Suit of New Iberia and Moon Griffon of Lafayette, who often pair up for tournaments, rose to the occasion and nailed down third place with a limit weighing 12 pounds, 8 ounces, worth $360. They culled while fishing closer to the public boat ramp under U.S. 90.

Jacob Shoopman, who was born and raised in New Iberia, said about the smaller-than-anticipated field, “It’s a bunch of good anglers and good guys who fished on a cold day. I’ve got a lot of respect for them.”

The bait of choice for the winning team, and the bass, was a double-bladed spinnerbait. Jacob used a Stanley model with Colorado blades while the elder Shoopman, who retired as The Daily Iberian’s senior news editor in 2019, used a Delta Lures model with Colorado blades.

They targeted pipeline canals in the lake. Don caught the first keeper about 7:25 a.m., less than 10 minutes after they got to their first stop.

“We mostly were kind of catching prespawn fish off deeper stuff in canals,” Jacob said.

The first five bass deposited in the livewell weighed 1 ½ to 2 ¼ pounds, he said. The size of the bass they put in the boat after 11 a.m. changed for the better.

Jacob, a salesman for Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United, said, “We were sitting on 8 or 9 pounds. We culled four times when the bigger ones started to bite. It was a nice little flurry.”

As the bass got bigger and bigger, bassin’ got more and more exciting. The younger bass angler flipped a cast to the shoreline near the end of the spurt and was rewarded nicely.

“I cast up shallow in 6 to 12 inches of water. The fish hammered it. Once I set the hook it ran out to deeper water like a redfish,” he said.

As Jacob’s fishing rod bowed double while he turned the bass and played it to the boat, his dad said, “He (Jacob) said, ‘Get it in the net. Please get it in the net!’ I didn’t want to miss.”

They knew it was big but didn’t weigh it. They celebrated accordingly.

Jacob’s 71-year-old dad said the win ranked up there with the father-son team’s other big wins together since the mid-2000s.

Those memorable events included the Atchafalaya Bassmasters Open in August 2020 and Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series Angler(s) of the Year titles in 2015 and 2020, plus double-digit Hawg Fights Ws.

Jacob agreed and said, “This one definitely is up there with some of our bigger wins because this tournament usually brings out all the best sticks around. Fishin’ with my old partner … It’s fun to fish tournaments with my dad because we really get time to bond and talk and have a good time.”