’Tis the season when an outdoorsman’s trophies have either a hide or feathers.

Gerard Dupuis got his hands on a trophy two days before Christmas. “GD,” as family and friends call him, wasn’t in a duck blind in the marsh, rice fields or swamp or up in a tree stand in the woods overlooking a feeder.

Dupuis fooled and fought a trophy-sized bass out of the chilly waters of Lake Martin late in the afternoon on Dec. 23. The 35-year-old St. Martinville man took advantage of getting off work early that day, at noon, he said, thanks to his boss at Core Lab Reservoir Fluids.

He hurried home, hooked up his ol’ reliable fiberglass bass boat with a big Merc on the back and drove to Lake Martin thinking some big bass would be heavy with eggs and/or crawfish/shiners. His hunch was on the money.

“It’s late December. I figured fish would be starting to put on some size. I know Martin has big ones in it. That’s what made me go over there. I went over there with the intention of catching a big one,” he said the next day.

Dupuis got his hands on a “big one,” all right. It weighed 8 pounds even, the hand-held digital scale showed when he weighed it as the sun was setting behind the levee to the west. It was his PB.

The Louisiana Bass Cats member, who also fishes Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series contests when he can, dropped his boat in about 1 p.m. and started probing the cypress trees known to give up big bass January through April. That the water temperature was 58 degrees encouraged him as he targeted the prime cover, mostly with soft plastics.

Dupuis hooked and boated two bass over the next couple of hours, one a 2-pounder and the other estimated at 2 ¾ pounds.

It was getting late as he fished in the scenic landlocked lake. He trolling motored to a good-looking spot around 4:30 p.m.

“I was on the north end of the lake fishing a big group of cypress trees bunched together in approximately 2 ½-foot depths. That fish came off the base of a cypress tree,” he said, referring to the long flip he made with a black/blue Reaction Innovations Double Wide Beaver impaled on a 4/0 Extra Wide hook under a pegged 3/8-ounce Tungsten weight.

“So I pitched it and let it fall, hopped it once and saw the line swimming off. I set the hook and the fish went straight under the boat. It came out, jumped once or twice. That was about it. Then it just rolled over and I drug it into the boat,” he said. “Oh, man, I knew it was big when I set the hook. I really didn’t know what I had (weight-wise) until I got it in the boat. Like I said when it was in the net, it looked like it grew!”

The entire sequence from cast to hookset to scooping the lunker bass with a long-handled landing net was caught on his GoPro camera with his play-by-play narrative. Dupuis enjoys filming his favorite outdoor sport whenever possible.

“Usually, if I get a bite early on, I strap it on. I got the first bite and said, ‘Oh, I might catch a few today.’ That’s why I put the Go-Pro on. I’m glad I did,” he said about the exciting live action the video recorded.

“I put it (the big bass)  in the livewell so I could just calm down. I set the GoPro up so I could get the picture(s).”

Dupuis and the hawg posed for the photos. Then he released it to live and, perhaps, thrill another bass angler in the future.

As photos and video show, it was a very healthy, fat bass.

“The big one had a big belly on it. With the water temperature about 58 degrees, they’re probably about to turn on over there,” he said.

He was proud to catch his new PB bass. His previous personal best bass weighed 7.18 pounds when he hooked and boated it in Spring 2023 while he was prefishing with Max Stevens of Lafayette, Louisiana Bass Cats president, for the final Top 6 tournament on Toledo Bend.

“I always thought to beat that one I’d have to go back to Toledo Bend. I never imagined I would beat that one so close to the house where I grew up. You just never know,” he said.

Dupuis was so fired up at the time another trip to the little lake couldn’t come soon enough. He planned to go back to the lake that day.

“If it wasn’t for the duck hunters I’d be there right now. I don’t like to mess them up,” he said.

That big bass is still swimming with the fishes. Dupuis practices catch-and-release.

Proud of the new PB, he did remind himself on the way home to get measurements next time so he can get a replica mount.