MANY – Long before hooking and boating three – count ’em, three – 8-pound class bass March 15 on the second day of the 2025 Texas Oilman’s Bass Invitational at Toledo Bend, New Iberians Donald Romero Sr. and Larry Verret laughed and laughed after catching their biggest fish that Saturday.

“I think it was his (Verret’s) second cast. He said, ‘Get the net!’ That fish pulled that drag. That fish was going everywhere,” Romero said about the frantic few moments in the dark a few minutes after 7 a.m. He had the landing net ready but was having difficulty locating the brute in low light conditions.

“He (Verret) said, ‘Look right there! Net him!’ When I finally caught it (scooped it up with the landing net) it was a carp. Look. We laughed after. He thought he had the biggest bass he ever caught. I had never caught a carp and he hadn’t either.”

It was an inauspicious start for the team who won this prestigious major tournament in 2022. Romero and Verret, who have fished the TOBI together since the early 2010s, were hopeful of a more encouraging beginning but enjoyed the epic moments first thing in the morning.

More importantly, Romero, 69, and Verret, 59, also had the last laugh and another ultra-proud moment at the final weigh-in when their hard-earned limit weighed 28.20 pounds, good enough to finish second overall in the 323-boat field with a two-day total of 55.41 pounds worth $1,200 each.

The New Iberia bass anglers charged into Day 2 in second-place after weighing 27.21 pounds with their five-bass limit the first day on Toledo Bend. A huge, unhappy carp failed to faze them early.

Nevertheless, the bass they found in bushes 1- to 2-foot depths cooperated less than they did the day before.

“We had only one fish at 11 o’clock,” Verret said, noting they fished a couple spots before going to one good area they had left around that time.

Their fortunes changed for the better around 11:30 a.m. when Romero flipped a watermelon/red Zoom Brush Hog into the umpteenth bush he’d seen and fished since they began scouting March 1 while staying in Romero’s camp at Toledo Bend. He was rewarded right away when that hookset sank into the mouth of a sizable bass rather than a huge carp.

That was the first 8-pounder.

“Donald caught an 8-something. Then I caught an 8-something, maybe five minutes apart from each other,” Verret said, adding his big’un bit on a black/emerald Brush Hog. “The fish rolled into that area, Then we ended up catching another 8-pounder off the spot and another 2 (2-pounder). We missed another 8. That’s fishing.”

Their great 8s weighed 8.48, 8.16 and 8.05 pounds. The 8.48-pounder was the 10th-biggest bass of the tournament, 3 pounds off the pace set by Bryan Duhon and Trey Duhon’s 11.79.

The eventual runners-up might have had a 37-pound limit the second day IF that last 8 stayed hooked up, culled a bass and joined the team riding in Romero’s big Phoenix bass boat. And 37 pounds more than likely would have given them their second W at the TOBI.

The 2025 TOBI’s championship team of Lee Frederick and Chris Clement, whose two-day total was 60.27 pounds, walked away with the hardware and first-place cash. Richard and Stephanie Porter finished third behind Romero and Verret with 50.22 pounds.

Romero said, “We fished against a bunch of great fishermen. That’s 644 fishermen you’re fishing against. When you come out first, second or third, you’ve accomplished something.”

“We fish really well together. I mean, we’ve been fishing a long time over there and we’re really good friends. We mostly have the same thoughts in our head. Sometimes it comes together. Sometimes it doesn’t. It is a great accomplishment – 323 boats – it really is. They really have some good fishermen fishing that,” Verret said.

The New Iberia outdoorsmen covered some water while prefishing in their quest to accomplish something. Between March 1-13 they missed just one day on the lake due to inclement weather conditions. They fished north to south and east to west before settling on an undisclosed area north of Pendleton Bridge on the Louisiana side, Romero in his boat and Verret in his Skeeter until they teamed up the last few days before the TOBI.

That’s where they were at 7 a.m. on Friday. Bass were shallow in the bushes but, unfortunately, so were the carp, moving around and splashing.

Would the bass bite? The team’s soft plastic creature baits found out again and again when flipped inside the bushes.

“We got them out of them bushes. We didn’t miss one Friday,” Romero said.

Color didn’t really matter, said Verret, an ACME truck driver the past three years who previously owned BMT Rental & Supply, an oilfield-related business. He stayed exclusively with Brush Hogs while Romero, semi-retired working as a consultant for TPD and former owner of Romero Fishing and Rental Tool Co., also used Zoom Ultra-Vibe Speed Craws.

TOBI banned forward facing sonar for the first time in last weekend’s tournament.

The TOBI board of directors donated $50,000 to Texas Children’s Hospital following the 2025 event.