LOREAUVILLE – Two cousins from St. Martinville took advantage of a chance to fish the Louisiana Bass Cats Father’s Day Weekend Open together and made the most of it June 15 on a very inhospitable Lake Fausse Pointe.

Braxton Resweber and Austin Theriot were able to team together again and while the outcome was predictable the overall results reflected the subpar bass fishing in the lake where 17 boats competed in the Open. Resweber and Theriot won with five bass weighing 9 pounds, 7.5 ounces to drive away from Marsh Field Landing with $750.

“Oh, I tell you what, me and Braxton have been pretty busy lately. It felt good to win a tournament with him. I miss fishing with him,” said Theriot, a 23-year-old helicopter mechanic for Arrow Aviation Co. LLC in Broussard.

Resweber, 27, shipping coordinator for Starr Power Tongs LLC in Youngsville, said, “We’re getting busier the older we get. But it’s always fun when we get together.”

The key to catching a limit, Resweber said, was “putting our head down and staying where you know they’ve got fish.”

Their place was a long, deep borrow pit along the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee. There is beaucoup cover on the levee side and the opposite shoreline.

Finding bass, then getting bit, however, was a two-pronged challenge for the two-man team that has dominated in years past in the Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series. They cruised to the popular circuit’s Angler(s) of the Year title in 2021.

“We caught our first fish around 7 o’clock. After that we didn’t catch a keeper till 1 o’clock. We didn’t cull,” Theriot said after the winning effort, noting several bass they hooked and boated were small keepers that wouldn’t help the cause. “We just stuck it out and slowed down and fished it out. It didn’t take much to pass them up the way they were biting.”

Resweber said, “It was just waiting for them to move to us … they move up and down, move up to structure. I don’t think they were set up to feed all day because the bites came in little windows.”

And some of the structure that gave up a few bass wasn’t along the shoreline, he said, adding “… Just stuff I’ve been riding over for years, brushtops (stumps and deadfalls).”

The bait of choice for the cousins was a green pumpkin GYCB Senko rigged “wacky” style. A few bass bit on crank baits.

“We’d throw it out and let it sit. You had to get it near (or on) cover,” Resweber said about the soft plastic stick worm.

Two father-and-son teams also hit paydirt on the day before Father’s Day.

Tee Roy Savoy and his son, Ry Savoy, finished right behind the winners. The Savoys, who work diligently every spring to host the Jackie Savoy Memorial Big Bass Classic, nailed down the runners-up spot worth $450 with five bass weighing 9-0 pounds.

Jacob Shoopman fished with his dad, Don Shoopman, and they notched a third-place showing with a limit weighing 8-8.5 pounds for $300. Jacob’s son, Miller Shoopman, who’s nearly 1 ½ years old, attended a weigh-in for the first time and got a good look at the bass.

The tournament’s big bass money went to Dusty Rice and his wife, Stacy Rice. Their biggest bass weighed 3-12.5 pounds to earn $170.

Six of the 17 boats in the tournament field that left at safe daylight came back without a bass to put on the digital scale manned by past president and weighmaster Mike Sinitiere, who was unable to fish because of a recent meniscus operation on his right knee.

Most Open participants had a difficult time finding and catching enough bass the preferred size. Theriot agreed on the degree of difficulty.

“It was a tough day out there, for sure” with no wind, a bluebird sky and a water level that fluctuated from a hard, fast rise several weeks ago before the bottom fell out and dropped to just before normal level before Father’s Day Weekend. While the lake was an estimated 1 ½- to 2-feet higher than usual recently, bassin’ success frustrated even veteran bass anglers.

So weigh-in bags were light, even for an early summer derby, the day before Father’s Day.

“I knew we had a shot. It wasn’t too surprising being how tough it was on me. I figured it’d be a tough one for everybody,” Resweber said.

“The way I look at it now, every time (bass tournament), if you have 10 pounds, you have a shot. You never know. It’s crazy,” Theriot said.

“I’ll take it (the W). (But) it’s sad it takes 9 pounds. We stuck it out. It’s tough. It’s hot. The heat’s starting, for sure.”