MOSS BLUFF – Two Catholic High School Fishing Team members are avoiding the “sophomore jinx” in their second year of bass tournament competition with a persistent approach.

Seventh-graders Cannon Leger and Greyson Young, both 12, notched a third-place finish in the Junior Division on Nov. 9 on the Calcasieu River. The four keeper-sized bass they put on the scale weighed 5.01 pounds.

Cannon and Greyson, captained by Leger’s father, Mark Leger, all soaked to the bone from a nearly daylong downpour, had no idea they finished third until they were on I-10 East heading home to New Iberia. Young’s mom, Sara Kristivich Bergeron, was monitoring the live-streamed awards ceremony when she heard the names of the third-place team called.

Young’s family turned around but Leger, towing his Skeeter center console boat in the rain, continued. Bergeron collected the $20 gift card prize for each of the young student/athletes from CHS.

It was an unexpected but welcome exclamation point to a wet day spent on a river system stingy with its bass.

“The boys had a great day today, a fun, wet day catching fish. We got third place and didn’t even know. We had a fun one. This is our highest finish. It isn’t our most weight but it is our highest finish. This year was definitely better than last year (season),” Mark Leger said a few hours after returning home Saturday evening.

The team’s captain noted the young bass anglers scratched May 4, 2024, (LHSBN state tournament) on the Calcasieu River. However, in their first visit to the Calcasieu River in Fall 2023, Leger and Young managed to weigh one keeper at 1.81 pounds to finish 19th.

It was payback time, he said.

“That’s why we felt this tournament was important to come back and do better than before. We were tired of Calcasieu kicking our butt,” he said.

His son echoed those words about rear end kicking and said they wanted to prove they were better than that there. The young team is improving, Cannon said.

“It’s just, like, we’ve known each other for a while. We’ve been playing soccer together, been in the same school, taking the same classes together,” he said.

Greyson agreed and said, “I definitely think we got better than last year. Last year we caught one in there (Calscasieu River).”

Cannon and Greyson’s captain, an automation and controls engineer for Talos Energy Inc., was unable to prefish the river because of work commitments. So he game-planned on what history he knew plus his instinct with the boys providing input.

According to Cannon, Greyson got the ball rolling on a viable pattern. It happened a while after a swing and a miss at 7 a.m.

“Greyson had a blowup on his first topwater bite (on a Whopper Plopper) he got,” Mark Leger said.

Greyson bounced back by putting the first bass in the boat, an 11 ½-incher at 8:30 a.m. Cannon put the next three bass in the boat, each bigger than the one before at 12 ½, 14 and 15 inches long.

“After Greyson caught the first fish, we kind of figured out the strategy, kind of like jigging along trees. We had to jig over and over at the same trees. They weren’t hitting it the first time. It’d take two, three or four casts before they’d bite it,” Cannon said.

Also, he said, “Greyson told dad we had to go back to the first spot (where Greyson swung and missed on that bass that hit the Whopper Plopper).”

Cannon and Greyson started their CHS Fishing Team career with a big splash in September 2023 by catching the Junior Division’s biggest bass in their first-ever Louisiana High School Bass Nation tournament Sept. 9, 2023, at Manchac.

The 2024-25 CHS Fishing Team also was represented at the recent Calcasieu River tournament by original members Jarrett Baquet and Seth Switzer, captained by Dr. Shawn Baquet, in the High School Division. Baquet and Switzer came in 37th with five bass weighing 6.39 pounds while catching 20 keepers.

Bad luck plagued the upperclassmen who missed two 2-pound class bass that tangled with the trolling motor and won.

Another CHS Fishing Team Junior Division duo scratched on the Calcasieu River. Hollis Daigle and his younger brother, Holden Daigle, were captained by Brock Daigle.

Acadiana high schoolers were led once again by Travis Meche Jr. and Chance Watson, who finished eighth with five bass weighing 9.01 pounds. Captained by Travis Meche Sr., the Rayne High School team has started the 2024-25 season with back-to-back Top 10 finishes and already have qualified for the state tournament next May on the Ouachita River out of Monroe.