Brock Daigle is following his heart and soul and his son is following in his footsteps.

Earlier this year, Daigle joined the Armed Forces Fishing League’s Louisiana Brigade. The New Iberia outdoorsman fished five regular-season bass tournaments with his son, Hollis Daigle, a seventh-grader at Catholic High School, and qualified as one of the top five Louisiana teams for the AFFL National Championship held Oct. 4-5 at Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee.

That they finished 12th in the 19-boat field paled in comparison to the overall adventure with his family and knowledge gained on another previously unfamiliar body of water.

AFFL was founded two years ago by Nick Eudenbach, a former New Hampshire Army National Guard MP. It has expanded to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky and, starting this year, Louisiana.

AFFL’s goal is helping service members, current and retired, reconnect and bond again. First-responders and Department of Defense employees and contractors also are eligible for membership, according to Eudendach.

The National Tournament brought many of the members together last week at a scenic lake in the South with a history of good bass fishing.

Jermiah Jenson and Austin Kitterman finished comfortably ahead of the 19-boat field with two five-bass limits for a two-day winning total of 31.02 pounds. Curt Shaw and Scott Kestner grabbed the runners-up spot with nine bass weighing 22.13 pounds. Ryan Aaron and Spencer Moffitt’s seven bass weighed 17.21 pounds, good enough for third place.

The Daigles, who caught only one striped bass while prefishing after 8 a.m. Thursday, about seven hours following their arrival in Harrison, Tennessee, needed to use Day 1 of the tournament for more scouting and the elder Daigle reeled in one small keeper that bit a green/blue Zoom Super Fluke.

“Lake Chick is a big lake. It’s comparable to fishing the Red River, a bunch of coves off it, lots of deep water, lots of shallow water,” he said.

Mostly, there was grass.

“Man, there was grass all over Lake Chick. We ripped a Fluke through the grass and caught several bass (mostly small),” Daigle said.

After the trying practice day, he said, “We looked mostly for laydowns and docks, marinas, rip-rap, still trying to go with what we know, you know?”

During the weeks before the 10-hour drive to Tennessee, Daigle and his son watched YouTube videos on targeting bass in the lake, then studied Garmin’s ActiveCaptain and Navionics Charts. He also purchased a paper map of the lake at a local tackle shop that showed flooded timber and other helpful features.

They hooked and boated eight bass on Day 2. Daigle caught their three keepers, including one a little over 2 pounds, on a golden bream Jackhammer Chatterbait at a marine in 15-foot depths.

Daigle said it was a good experience. They fished out of his new Xpress X21 powered by a 250-h.p. Yamaha Sho.

“We were not disappointed. It was kind of like an extended learning day for us. I knew we weren’t in it to win it. We ended up catching eight bass with three keepers – two spots and a largemouth a little over 2 pounds,” he said about the second day.

Ah. Experiences are golden. Like memories.

Daigle’s oldest son has fished the Louisiana High School B.A.S.S. Nation circuit since Sept. 3, 2022, when he and Vincent Soprano fished their first tournament as members of the Catholic High School Fishing Team out of Doiron’s Landing, Stephensville.

Hollis and his teammate competed in the 2023 Bassmaster Junior National Championship in mid-July at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina with the elder Daigle as captain. The Junior Team members finished 82nd in the two-day national derby tournament they qualified for automatically by fishing the Louisiana B.A.S.S. Nation State Tournament.

In his next big venture, the tournament at Lake Chickamauga, Hollis’ partner was his father, who’s getting into tournament mode in-state and out-of-state as quickly as possible with the latest challenge on the road at The Chick.

“Being in the boat all day with the boys and only being able to fish on practice day was eating me up. I also wanted to fish tournaments, so I found a league for people I have lots in common with. I wanted no one but Hollis as my partner because it gives us more experience on lakes that are unfamiliar to us,” he wrote in an email, citing the AFFL circuit’s stops this year at Grand Bayou Lake, Chicot Lake, Toledo Bend, Caddo Lake and Cane River.

The 44-year-old Iberia Parish Career Center career and tech ed instructor since the mid-2010s was looking for a circuit and happened to see an AFFL Louisiana Brigade page on Facebook. It inspired the former Louisiana National Guardsman.

Why? AFFL’s members are current and retired servicemen, first-responders and DOD Employees/Contractors. It was formed to reconnect bass anglers with similar pasts serving the country.

It’s a nonprofit bass fishing circuit that donates $10 for every membership to For His Glory Outdoors, a veteran-owned business with a mission to heal combat veterans through the outdoors and Jesus Christ. It’s in eight states with more countrymen in other states ready to get on board.

Young Daigle got a taste of that camaraderie with his dad at Lake Chickamauga.

After their day of prefishing, Daigle stepped up to the plate when the AFFL bass angler who was scheduled to prepare a barbecue supper that night went to Hurricane Helena-ravaged North Carolina to feed the victims and others.

“I said, ‘Look, bud, I can cook a jambalaya real quick.’ I got to share a bit of Cajun flavor,” he said about cooking a traditional chicken and sausage jambalaya for 40 people that’s still getting raves (and requests for recipes) on Facebook.

“It was a bunch of like-minded veterans and first-responders with a passion for fishing and the outdoors. There was camaraderie from all the teams that participated from all the states,” he said.

Daigle encouraged servicemen, first-responders and Department of Defense employees and contractors to join Louisiana’s AFFL. In an email, he wrote, “We have a field of 15-20 boats so far for this coming season starting in January. We are looking to grow our Louisiana Brigade. … The more teams we get down here, the more tournaments we will have here.”

Non-veterans and non-first-responders can join as long as their partner is a veteran or active duty serviceman or first-responder. For more information call Daigle at 337-380-6391 or contact him at bdaigle@armedforcesfishing.com or go to the national Facebook page Armed Forces Fishing League and Louisiana’s team Facebook page AFFL-Louisiana.