Two Teche Area bass anglers each overcame the odds to rebound from at least one forgettable qualifying tournament to represent Louisiana at the 2025 B.A.S.S. Nation Central Divisional in May.

Hunter Neuville of Loreauville and Mike Louviere of Jeanerette, a Loreauville native, both made the Louisiana B.A.S.S. Nation State Team with clutch tournaments Sept. 27 and Sept. 28 in the Fall Qualifier at Toledo Bend out of San Miguel State Park near Zwolle. Neuville and Louviere, each fishing the Boater Division, punched their ticket for a second straight year to the Central Divisional. Neuville finished sixth overall with 877 points while Louviere was eighth with 875 points.

“I had a lot of pressure on me the second day (at Toledo Bend). I knew I had to make the Top 4 to go straight to nationals,” Neuville said recently.

The Loreauville outdoorsman, who fished and excelled on the Louisiana High School B.A.S.S. Nation team at Highland Baptist Christian School, missed out on that mark by just four points as the fourth-place bass angler, Samuel Anthony, amassed 881 points.

Nevertheless, Neuville, a 21-year-old composite tech for Bell Helicopter, made the Top 14.

“It feels good knowing I managed to save it,” the Atchafalaya Bassmasters member said after finishing 23rd in the first qualifying tournament at Toledo Bend, then rebounding with an eighth-place showing with 9.34 pounds that Saturday. His two-day total of 11.59 pounds was good enough for 15th.

His Toledo Bend game plan, based on good catches while prefishing deep with forward facing sonar, crumbled on the first day when he managed to weigh just one bass. When Neuville got out there Friday he saw more bass than he’d seen all week on FFS.

It was a breezy day, which he believed would favor him.

“I thought the wind would help me, make the bite better. The wind just shut it off,” he said. “The second day I had to scrap it. I just had to go run through water.”

Neuville hooked and boated most of his bass around docks Saturday on swimbaits with an underspin.

He notched 15th- and third-place finishes  in the two 2024 Spring Qualifier tournaments in the Atchafalaya Basin.

Donald Rebstock from the Tri-Parish Bassmasters dominated the spring and fall qualifying tournaments, first in the Atchafalaya Basin, then at Toledo Bend, and finished in the top spot with 896 points. The 2024 overall champion was followed by runner-up Jarred Aucoin with St. Mary’s Bassmasters, 884, and the Ascension Area Anglers’ Benjamin Nobile, 893.

Rebstock’s first day catch at Toledo Bend weighed 10.16 pounds. He came back the second day with an unbeatable 17.63 pounds for a two-day total of 27.79 pounds.

Malcolm Smith from the Ascension Area Anglers was seventh in the overall standings with 878 points and the eighth spot went to Louviere.

“I never fished so hard in my life those two days (at Toledo Bend). My goal was to make the State Team. You know, it’s a big accomplishment,” Louviere said.

His friends and other bass fishermen responded overwhelmingly to his Facebook post on Sept. 29, a Sunday, citing the accomplishment, he said after his third year as a Louisiana B.A.S.S. Nation Boater. His social media platform was inundated with congrats while beaucoup texts were sent, he said.

Louviere, a weld leaderman for Chart Industries and an accomplished bass angler in tournaments across Acadiana, dug himself a small hole in the first qualifier at Toledo Bend with only four bass weighing 7.65 pounds for ninth place. He bounced back like a veteran bass angler he is on the second day with a five-bass limit weighing 11.24 pounds for fifth place.

As for the hiccup on Day 1, he said, “I made a bad call. I never should have left (his starting spot).”

He had four keepers in the livewell but believed he could do better at another spot. It didn’t happen.

Where he caught an 8-pounder on a Stanley Ribbit plastic frog, plus a 5, in practice didn’t pay off either.

“I get to where I caught the 8 on Wednesday. She bites the Ribbit and I miss her. She comes up on it … I don’t know. She didn’t have it. It made me sick, knowing what I had at stake, knowing if I don’t do good I don’t make the State Team,” he said.

“Toledo Bend was fishing rough. Day 2. I had my fish for 11.24. I sat down in an area I found fish and caught everything I could,” Louviere said.

Louviere, who marks his 45th birthday Oct. 10, also recovered from a bad break during the Spring Qualifier in the Spillway. After finishing 14th in the first qualifier his outboard motor’s fuel pump went out and he was unable to fish Day 2.

He rose to the challenge at Toledo Bend.

“I wasn’t expecting to make the State Team. I really wasn’t. It was a surprise,” he said.

Both Neuville, who has competed in state, regional and national tournaments while fishing with Louisiana B.A.S.S. Nation and LHSBN, and Louviere were on the water this past weekend.

Neuville was fishing Major League Fishing’s TBF Semifinal at Cedar Creek in Texas after qualifying with a fifth-place finish in March at Toledo Bend. Louiviere went out with the Bullet Bass Club in a regional challenge against Texas bass clubs at Lake Sam Rayburn.