The next big thing on the bass tournament schedule around here is 1 ½ weeks away.

It’s easy to imagine the expansive Marsh Field Landing parking lot chock-a-block full of tow vehicles and boat trailers an hour or two before sunrise on Saturday, March 29. It always is around that time before the start of the oldest fundraising bass tournament in the Teche Area.

Weekend bass anglers and competitive bass tournament fishermen alike enjoy the big bass format of the tournament unique to this region – the Jackie Savoy Memorial Big Bass Tournament. It has eight hourly payouts of $250, $150 and $100 (based on a 40-boat field) for the biggest bass, plus an increasingly popular separate five-bass stringer pot introduced a few years ago on an experimental basis, then installed permanently.

The BBC participants can head out to fish Lake Fausse Pointe itself, and any other potential public hotspots farther away, before the sun gets up in the sky. However, the bass anglers cannot make their first cast until 7 a.m.

The first hour of reckoning is from 7-8 a.m. and, typically, bass weighing less than 2, 2 ½ pounds take the top three spots in that frame. Usually, bass get proportionally heavier each succeeding hour until the tournament ends at 3 p.m.

Veteran tournament director Tee Roy Savoy of Coteau Holmes welcomes anybody and everybody to register and fish in an event tailored to Lake Fausse Pointe in a format so popular with the Sealy Outdoors Big Bass Splash tournaments at Lake Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Lake Fork and Lake Guntersville. He’s expecting new faces to show up, register that morning, launch their boat and start fishing at 7.

Based on my multiple personal experiences in “our” tournament over the years, there’s no greater feeling in the boat than catching a big’un, putting it in the livewell before the two-man team races back to Marsh Field Landing, then decides whether to weigh the catch that hour or wait. It’s even sweeter when it sticks on the leaderboard at the end of an hour.

Entry fee is $150 per boat and it goes to an awesome, charitable cause to assist cancer victims and their families through the Lydia Cancer Association, as well as other people in need across Acadiana.

Savoy, 58, and his small army of volunteers run the tournament before, during and after like a well-oiled machine. He’s looking forward to this year’s event, which includes, as it has for the past two years, a rice and gravy cookoff that can include any type of gravy with beef, pork or poultry. Entry fee per cooking team is $30.

The cookoff, which visitors and bass tournament anglers appreciate wholeheartedly as they sample the different dishes, is a nice touch to the fundraiser started more than two decades ago by the late Elvis Jeanminette of Grand Marais. Jeanminette had a vision to help others battling the disease as well as their loved ones caring for them.

Savoy, who owns Cayenne Building Services, which builds metal structures and awnings, knows what the ordeal is all about. His wife, Jackie, was diagnosed with cancer and then, after a long, courageous five-year battle, died at age 52 on Feb. 1, 2021.

The Savoy family, friends and local bass anglers embraced his decision three weeks later to rename the tournament the Jackie Savoy Memorial Big Bass Classic. A few friends and dedicated volunteers urged Savoy, who took the reins from Jeanminette in 2015, to implement the name change.

No doubt the tournament’s namesake is proud of each of the succeeding events.

Savoy welcomes more donations to go toward payouts or for the ongoing raffle and silent auction.

Let’s support this great cause to the max.

For more information about the tournament and/or about the cookoff call Savoy at (337) 519-3107.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.