As season openers go, this one coming up is one of my top three favorites.

I’m sure dozens of other bass anglers feel the same way about the upcoming 20th Annual Louisiana Bass Cats Open, also known as the Invitational, that gets underway Saturday morning, Feb. 15, in the heart of St. Mary Parish. We’ll all meet with boat in tow between 5-6 a.m. at Fairfax Foster Bailey Memorial Boat Launch in Franklin under Interstate 10.

Louisiana Bass Cats president Max Stevens certainly is fired up. The avid bass angler can’t wait to get the tournament rolling and team up with fairly new bass club member Dusty Rice as his partner on Saturday.

“I think it’ll be an interesting tournament. We’re hoping to get 28, 30 boats this time. I just hope the weather doesn’t hold us back. High winds (and rain) are predicted. Be safe,” Stevens said Monday morning.

He and other Louisiana Bass Cats officials plan to set up and start taking registration at 5 a.m. Entry fee is $100 with an optional $10 big bass pot. Teams will draw a number, a chip, at registration that signifies their place in the takeoff order sometime between 6:15-6:35 a.m. That chip must be on the board before weigh-in time, 4 p.m., he said.

Stevens, a 53-year-old Lafayette resident who was born and raised in New Iberia, said several areas should be in play for fair to good bass tournament fishing.

“The marsh is producing a lot of fish,” he said, noting the numbers are there but it’s challenging to get 3-plus pound bass. “I think the Basin (Atchafalaya Basin) will come into play this year. I don’t  think the lake will be a winning bag this year because of the front we’re getting.”

The K&R Operating LC lede (sic) over power generation controls believes he and his partner will come back with a five-bass limit to be reckoned with. Areas both have prefished look promising, he said.

“I’m hopeful the fish are cooperative because I’d really like to win this,” he said.

Stevens also noted Tangled Up Outdoors, Rice’s mobile bait and tackle shop, will be on the site open for business before takeoff.

The father-son team of Don Shoopman of New Iberia and Jacob Shoopman of Lafayette, formerly of New Iberia, won it all last year with a five-bass limit weighing 14 pounds, 13.5 ounces, including the tournament’s lunker bass at 5 pounds. Their catch was 1 pound more than the limit brought in by Kevin Hebert, who was fishing alone to sack up 13 pounds, 9.5 ounces for runnerup and $540.

Kevin Suit of New Iberia and Moon Griffon of Lafayette teamed up to nail down third place with five bass weighing 12 pounds, 8 ounces, worth $360.

The younger Shoopman, a salesman for Coca-Cola United Bottling Co., said it was a challenge to sack up nearly 15 pounds and top a 22-boat field after a 45-minute boat ride in temperatures hovering around 33-35 degrees that morning in the Teche Area. Plus, a hard north wind blew a lot of water out of Lake Fausse Pointe, so it was ultra-low.

“It was fun last year … real tough fishing. There was a low number of boats because of the weather and we were lucky enough to get the bites to win. It was a good feeling,” he said.

It was a feeling worth $900 for first place and another $210 for the biggest bass of the day, a 5-pounder, which he caught on his favorite spinnerbait.

Jacob, whose last bass fishing outing was Oct. 26-27 in the Louisiana Bass Cats Classic pitting bass club members who finished in the Top 10 in 2024, knows it will be tough to defend the Open title Saturday. The Shoopmans plan to fish barring an early arrival of Jacob and Stephanie Gary’s second child due any time.

If it’s a go, they’re ready to roll on the water.

“Everybody’s always excited to kick off the year and it’s a lot of boats putting in the work (prefishing and tournament day). I think there’ll be some fish already up shallow and on beds. There could be a shallow bite going,” he said.

“It should be a fun one. Overall, fishing should be pretty good with this warming trend. I think there will be a couple cold nights (later this week) but I don’t think that’ll affect it too much. There should be some good bags brought in.”

As for the defending champs, neither has spent even a full hour on the water locally this year, he noted. With luck, Jacob said, his partner can go this week.

“We’ll just go out there and do our best and have fun. Hopefully, we’ll go out and get a couple bites,” he said.

Like Stevens, Jacob believes Lake Fausse Pointe, the Atchafalaya Basin and the marsh will be players in determining who grabs first-place bragging rights in this year’s Open.

“The Basin’s at a good height. I mean, it could be won anywhere on Lake Fausse Pointe and the marsh is always dangerous this time of year,” he said.

The tale at the scale will decide the outcome Saturday.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.