MYETTE POINT – An accomplished bass tournament angler reached out to a young outdoorsman who fishes for bass and sac-a-lait, like he does, to enter a Louisiana Bass Cats tournament July 14 and, despite some setbacks and a challenging fishery, won in the Atchafalaya Basin.

Blaine Miller of Loreauville, 29, teamed with a guest, 17-year-old Caiden Carline, a senior at Loreauville High School, in the younger fisherman’s boat. After a fast start, they culled to a limit weighing 10 pounds, 7 ounces. Well, almost.

Four of Miller and Carline’s five bass died in a makeshift livewell, an ice chest, which led to a .25-pound penalty for each dead fish. Miller said water wasn’t circulating in the ice chest, which stressed the freshly caught bass.

With 9 pounds, 7 ounces, it was nail-bitin’ time after they weighed in and waited for the other 15 boats to check in at the digital scales manned by weighmaster and past bass club president Mike Sinitiere.

A new bass club member and his guest came the closest to knocking them out of the top spot when Mitch Suire, who recently joined LBC, and Jarod Trahan’s limit weighed 9 pounds, 6.5 ounces, worth $432.

And John Gordon and his guest, Al Falcon, were within a few ounces, too, with five bass weighing 9 pounds, 3.5 ounces, for $288.

“Man, I feel we got really lucky the way it all played out with the water rising 2 feet,” Carline, who plays football and baseball for the LHS Tigers, said.

“We survived a lot that day,” said Miller, who works two jobs at his own Miller’s A/C Services and at Sellers Sheet Metal LLC.

Carline’s old 16-foot, semi-V Gravois hull provided some of the day’s drama. When Carline launched in the predawn darkness at Myette Point Landing, one of the other bass tournament anglers asked if he was going sac-a-lait fishing, he recalled with a chuckle.

Carline did go sac-a-lait fishing the day before and burned approximately 6 gallons of gas in the 12-gallon tank. He caught some sac-a-lait, too.

“He (Carline) forgot to fill up the gas tank. We ran out of gas (returning to the landing with a potential winning catch around 1:15 p.m.) in Beehive Chute,” Miller said after the tournament.

They stopped at one camp where a man was cutting the grass and got 1 gallon. The winners, who took home $720 for first place, visited another camp where a couple were spending the weekend and got 4 more gallons. Miller said the man and woman didn’t want money in exchange but he left them $20.

As for the bass fishing, for them it was fair to good on a hot, mostly sunny midsummer day, which probably added to the difficulty level for many of the tournament’s bass anglers. Nine teams limited out and four scratched.

“Fishing-wise, when we got to the spot in the morning, we had six, seven keepers within an hour. When we started catching like that, it changed our attitude. We were way ahead of schedule,” Miller said, adding both anglers used soft plastics. “About 8:30, the fish quit biting. After about 11:45 we caught our biggest fish (and culled). Caiden caught our biggest fish (2 pounds, 14 ounces, worth $160) that culled a 1 ¼-pound fish.”

That big bass was alive and kicking and released after weigh-in.

Miller tipped his cap to Carline, who manned the trolling motor all day.

“They (bass the winners caught) were all on soft plastics. I like to fish fast. In Caiden’s boat, he fished slower than I do. I think that helped. Normally I would blow past” likely looking bass habitat.

“I like to fish very slow. I like to fish every branch of a tree. I like to see where they set up,” Carline said.

Miller met the high schooler a few times on the water the past few years while both were fishing Teche Lake Canal near Marsh Field Landing in Lake Fausse Pointe. When he realized late in the week he needed a tournament partner, he said, “I called that little guy and he said he’d like to fish.”

“I always wanted to get into tournament fishing,” Carline said, noting he fished some small high school bass tournaments during his first few years at LHS.