LOREAUVILLE – If Ben Berard thought winning the 20th annual Louisiana Bass Cats Open with Gavin Savoy on Feb. 15 was going to be the highlight of the young year, he was wrong.

If the Cecilia outdoorsman thought the 9.6-pound bass he hooked and boated while prefishing Feb. 28 for another big bass tournament the next day on Lake Fausse Pointe was the highlight two months into 2025, he had another thought coming.

Berard and Savoy teamed up again the next day and won, by the tiniest of margins, the 10th annual Legends on the Lake held out of Marsh Field Landing on March 1. They left in the predawn darkness to get to a nearby community hole in Lake Fausse Pointe and returned with a heavy enough limit after two key culls with five bass weighing 15.63 pounds.

What a stretch of highlights for Berard, a 34-year-old outside sales rep for the Jacc Group. The Open triumph in mid-March was worth $1,000. The 9.6-pounder is a memory for a lifetime. And the latest win was more than a pleasant surprise as it netted $800, plus two handsome plaques shaped like the Sportsman’s Paradise, for Berard and Savoy.

They needed every ounce to finish ahead of the rest of the bass anglers in the 25-boat field, particularly New Iberians Brad Romero and Raven Owens. Romero and Owens’ limit tipped the digital scale manned by tournament director Jarade Schexnayder to 15.28 pounds, agonizingly close to the winners for a payday of $460.

Third place was nailed down by Randy and Wyatt (no last names provided) who had 15.16 pounds.

“Hopefully, it keeps happening. It feels great to keep the momentum going,” Berard said a day later about notching back-to-back Ws in the Teche Area’s first two major bass tournaments of 2025.

Now he’s got matching Legends plaques, he pointed out, because two years ago he boasted the tournament’s biggest bass.

Savoy, of Catahoula, a 22-year-old welder at GOM Services LLC, said a few hours after the tournament, “Man, I’m still shaking. I can’t believe it. Yesterday my partner caught a 9.6-pound bass while scouting the lake not far from Marsh Field. It was a once-in-a-lifetime weekend. That’s crazy. First, second and third … all ounces apart. It was crazy.”

It all started a day earlier when they were scouting in separate boats. Berard went into a popular fishin’ hole expecting to just look at the water and leave but wound up flippin’ a soft plastic around instead.

“Funny thing. I went in there on Friday with no intention of fishing in there,” he said.

He trolling motored slowly along the structure-filled shoreline and caught a small bass. Then he started seeing bass on their beds before he got a look at a big bass so shallow its fins were showing.

“I messed with her about 10 minutes and came back,” noting he was debating whether or not to attempt to catch the huge fish obviously on a bed.

“I said, ‘We’re not coming in here anyway,’ ” he said and with that began targeting the bass.

The bass bit and he got a hook into it but it got unbuttoned right away. He flipped the soft plastic back in and hooked it solidly.

It jumped out of the water in front of the boat and he gasped.

“I saw how big she was,” he said, adding he panicked momentarily before composing himself.

Berard played the big bass to the boat, then got his hands on it. He called Savoy, who was fishing about 10, 15 minutes away, to come see something. While he waited, he saw four or five other bass on beds.

“Right then, that’s when we made the decision” to start there for the Legends on the Lake.

He weighed it, then released his new personal best right back on her bed. Unfortunately, she didn’t bite the next day.

But at 7:30 o’clock Saturday morning, Berard did catch a 5-pounder that got them started on the road to victory.

“Man, it was awesome. It was another good day. We were fishing around a lot of people. We just had to slow down, had to take our time. I had the trolling motor on 2,” he said.

“We caught maybe 10 fish all day. What we had seen yesterday, those fish haven’t been messed with. It was a picture perfect day for bass fishing,” Savoy said. “It was weird. You had to make the right decisions at the right time. We got very lucky.”

Around 10:30 a.m., with a limit of five bass in the boat, they left the hotspot and traveled to the area that was so sweet to them on Feb. 15, the day they won the Louisiana Bass Cats Open, fished approximately 20 minutes and made an important cull, then returned to their original destination.

Berard culled one more time with a 2 ¾-pounder that replaced a 1 ¼-pound bass.

“It’s awesome, an awesome feeling. I fish so much, (spend) a lot of time on the water. When it’s your time, it’s your time. Put trust in God and hope for the best,” Savoy said.

Berard’s previous PB was a tie with two 7s, one caught in a small lake and the other from Lake Sam Rayburn.