A is for AN old b&w photo propped up on a shelf behind this computer. The 1980s scene is of me and my brothers Bill Shoopman and Keith Shoopman, both lifelong Missourians, standing shirtless on the front deck of a DuraCraft. It’s a grand memory of bass fishing in Grevemberg, their fav place to go in our great Atchafalaya Basin. Looking at it now, there’s a pang in my heart and water in my eyes. Keith and I and our two sisters, Patti Rendina and Barbara Henry, his wife, Jan Shoopman, and daughters Adrienne Green and Margo Lang, et al, said goodbye for the last time to Bill on Oct. 13. The outdoorsman was 67 when he was diagnosed Aug. 1 with pancreatic cancer and died Oct. 7.

B is for BASSMASTER, Major League Fishing and the National Professional Fishing League addressed the elephant in the room this offseason regarding the use of forward facing sonar. B.A.S.S. has limited FFS usage on the Bassmaster Elite Series to just one transducer on the trolling motor and only one trolling motor can be used. MLF’s Bass Pro Tour will restrict its usage to two FFS transducers that can be used in one of three periods each day. NPFL imposed a total ban on FFS.

C is for CAMPS mean more than anything across the Sportsman’s Paradise. No matter how basic or lavish, they are our getaway to the gateway of fishing and hunting and appreciating the great outdoors.

D is for “DIRTY Thirty,” i.e., a five-bass limit weighing 30 or more pounds. New Iberia natives Ben Suit and Zach Suit, who live in Texas now, culled to a five-bass limit March 16 weighing 31 pounds, 2 ounces. The brothers came back the second day with 29 pounds, 12.5 ounces, including Zach’s 10.71-pounder, for a two-day total of 60 pounds, 14.5 ounces, to smoke the Louisiana Bass Cats field at Toledo Bend.

E is for EVER catch a 1 ½-pound catfish on a Senko, try to flip it to extract the hook, have a catfish spine go through the front of the right index finger between the second and third joints and out the other way, then reverse the process as the fish is shaken off? The pain just may bring you to your knees, hollerin’ expletives. I know.

F is for FINALLY, Florida bass fingerlings stocked May 15-16 in Lake Fausse Pointe by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. LDWF released 100,000 of the 1- to 2-inch long baby bass from Booker Fowler Fish Hatchery. Those bass fingerlings were the first stocked in the lake since 2014. Much smaller bass fry with a survival rate of 7 percent were released there in 2019, ’21, ’22 and ’23.

G is for GOING belly up? In all likelihood, after disheartening turnouts this year, there won’t be another Southcentral Fishing Association tournament. It was a popular local redfish tournament circuit held Saturdays for years but participation plummeted. Really sorry to see it go. There may be a variation or two down the line.

H is for HAWGS caught here and there in 2024 by Teche Area bass anglers. Wilfred “Tuppy“ Gary landed an 8-2 in Lake Martin; Brandon Derouen got an 8-13 while sac-a-lait fishing in Teche Lake Canal; Braxton Resweber caught a 9.87 in a big tournament at Toledo Bend; Zach Suit reeled in a 10.71 in a bass club tournament at Toledo Bend, and grandest of them all, Noah Louviere’s 11.22 at Caney Lake while fun fishing with brother-in-law, Connor Nimrod. Oh. Gerard “G.D.” Dupuis was a late-comer to this list of reported hawgs with the 8.0 he caught Dec. 23 at Lake Martin.

I is for “INCONVENIENT,” which is how President-elect Donald Trump recently described Daylight Saving Time. Trump has pledged to eliminate DST with the help of many in the GOP. If that happens, with no switching back and forth in the future, evening bass tournaments like the local WN Hawg Fights BTS would be in a bind with its 5:30 p.m. start. With DST, the mini-tournaments eventually go to 8:45 p.m., at the latest, by the hardest. Sans DST, 7:35 p.m. One remedy would be to start them at 5 p.m.

J is for JACOB Shoopman and his dad, local bass anglers who won WN Hawg Fights BTS AOY titles in 2015 and 2020. Five years after the last AOY, can they keep the five-year cycle intact? It’s unlikely because his fatherhood role doubles after late February/March with the pending birth of a second son to Jacob and his fiancée, Stephanie Gary. The accomplished father-son duo still will enjoy fishing as many tournaments together as possible.

K is for KASTKING fishing rods and baitcasting reels. The company’s main spokesman is the highly  personable – Cliff “Cajun Baby” Crochet, who lives in Port Barre and fishes the Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour. Crochet extolled the virtues of those “deadbolt” reels to me when they first hit the market.

L is for LOUISIANA Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Communicator of the Year award presented to me April 12 in Baton Rouge. I humbly accepted the statuette at the LWF 58th Conservation Achievement Awards Banquet attended by friends and family. It was a testament to y’all, the outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen behind the stories in the Teche Area, which I call God’s Country.

M is for MOMS on a mission. Five local women, each with their own career or business, look for ways to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. They did that by forming an all-women crew to fish the Casting for A Cause Benefitting Down South Heroes saltwater tournament June 20-23 out of Don’s Boat Landing in Vermilion Parish. The Aquaholics, as they called their group, also held a successful St. Jude Golf Ball Drop in April and Jeepin’ for a Cure in July.

N is for NEW regulations on the recreational harvest of redfish went into effect June 20 in Louisiana. Surprisingly, quite a few Teche Area saltwater fishermen took the change in stride. One of them, Milton Davis, said he believed it was “a good thing for the future.” LDWF biologists reported unfavorable numbers in their stock assessment study they said called for corrective measures.

O is for ODDS are astronomically high against a) pulling the trigger on a Benneli Black Eagle 1 and knocking down a duck banded 900 miles away near your old hometown, or b) shouldering a 20-gauge shotgun and killing a white squirrel near Coteau Holmes. Nevertheless, Lafayette native Martin Mouton of Charleston, S.C., got a wood duck on Jan. 30 that was banded 4 ½ years earlier in Kaplan while Justin “Mikie” Molbert, a freshman at St. Martinville Senior High, killed a rare white squirrel on Oct. 5.

P is for PAST time to demand dredging the mouth at Taylor’s Point to ensure egress and ingress from Charenton Lake in the Atchafalaya Basin. Contact your elected representative or senator soon and often asking for state intervention to get the area dredged this year.

Q is for QUITE a way to start the Southern Bass Club Association Elite 8. The Franklin-based Louisiana Bass Anglers and bass club member Bubbie Lopez, who had a role in forming the replacement for the Louisiana Top 6, won the tournament handily on April 26-27 at Toledo Bend. The eight-man team’s 76.82 pounds topped a 19-bass club field by more than 4 pounds.

R is for REMEMBER the forum to discuss the Atchafalaya Basin on July 23 at the LDWF office in Baton Rouge? It was well-attended (200 outdoorsmen showed up), successful (a dialogue was started) and encouraging (future meetings were planned). The overflow swamps problems were outlined with the basic denominator being water quality, or lack of it, followed by siltation. An LDWF biologist showed proof bass populations were plummeting. I urge anyone who cares about the Spillway to contact elected officials to keep the ball rolling.

S is for SMH, like many anglers have done. Take May 19, for example. Jacob Shoopman was shaking his head after fishing a Louisiana Bass Cats derby at Chicot Lake with Travis Meche Jr. of Branch. They finished second behind the father-and-son team of Troy Amy and Bo Amy, who won with 21 pounds, 10 ounces. Shoopman and Meche culled to 19 pounds, 0.5 ounces. Meche, a high school angler, accounted for every bass on a popper, to his partner’s amazement. They teamed up again Aug. 18 and both reeled in key bass to win the LBC tournament with 11.13 pounds at Henderson Lake.

T is for TEN black bears that were killed in Louisiana’s first black bear hunting season since 1988. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries scheduled the season from Dec. 7-22. Hunting was allowed only in Tensas, Madison and East and West Carroll parishes. Eleven hunting permits were distributed.

U is for UNDERWATER hazards continue to be the bane of boaters whether they’re in the Atchafalaya Basin or in and around Vermilion Bay. Stumps and such in the canals, particularly the 21-Inch Canal and Texaco Field, and rocks or reefs in inside waters took their toll on lower units and props again this year.

V is for VERMILION BAY’s speckled trout fishing has been as good as it gets starting in mid-fall through now. Limit after limit are coming in on guided boats and recreational boats. Another body of water just as hot, featuring heavier speckled trout, is Lake Pontchartrain, where all four bridges are hot.

W is for “WON’T Get Fooled Again.” Love that 1971 song by the Who. Now I’ve got to make sure what happened March 17 at Toledo Bend doesn’t happen again. It was Day 2 of an LBC tournament in a downpour that lasted the first 3 ½ hours while Jacob and I fished our favorite creek on the Louisiana side. Between 8-9 a.m., at a large sunken deadfall paralleling a dock, my Senko ran into a tree branch and “snagged” it. I see-sawed the snag in, exaggerating, for 3 minutes, pumping rod top up, reeling down, repeating. I bantered with Jacob, saying he was going to see a big, broken tree branch. When it broke the surface, to my surprise, it was a double-digit bass that did a figure eight and swam away. There was no bite, it didn’t shake its head or swim left or right, just a dead weight. Lesson learned.

X is for X marks the spot whether you’re fishing or hunting. Hotspots on the water are coveted by freshwater and saltwater anglers while preferred shot placement on deer is if it a) hits at least one lung/or the heart if quartering away and b) pierces both lungs and clips top of heart if broadside.

Y is for YOUTHS hunting and fishing around the Teche Area. Naturally, there has been another wave of first-deer kills by boys and girls, including Bowen Davis, Elli Morgan, Gabe Louviere, Luke Derise, among others, plus up-and-coming bass tournament anglers — Cannon Leger, Greyson Young, Hollis Daigle and Holden Daigle — still making waves.

Z is for Z-MAN’S Chatterbait JackHammer bladed jigs are hard to beat anywhere, it seems, for tournament and non-tournament bass anglers alike. The Ladson, S.C., artificial lure manufacturing company has earned its niche in the tacklebox.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.