MANY – A New Iberia husband-and-wife team shook off a so-so day of bass fishing March 14 at Toledo Bend, the first day of back-to-back tournaments with the Louisiana Bass Anglers, then roared back with a stunning winning limit in the second tournament on Saturday.

Raven and Brandy Owens weighed a limit boasting a 9.52-pound bass to top a 20-boat field fishing the bass club’s second and third tournaments of the year. Their five bass weighed 26.90 pounds.

“That was a heckuva win! We got a lot of personal bests over the weekend,” Raven Owens said a few days later. His new personal best bass was one highlight.

It was a little harder to shake off what else happened on that so-so Friday. While on the water on a very windy day, a tree fell and crumpled the hood and windshield of their pickup truck parked at Jack’s 944 Launch and Landing eight miles south of Hemphill, Texas.

“The week started off pretty rough,” Raven said in an understatement, adding his tow vehicle still was drivable and he taped the windshield. Full repairs waited until they returned home.

The LBA’s first tournament at Toledo Bend was won by Brad Romero and Dylan Kelly with an eye-opening 23.42 pounds. It was their first 23-plus pound limit of the weekend.

The Friday LBA tournament’s biggest bass was a 7.28-pounder carried to the scale by Louis Daigle, LBA’s defending Angler of the Year, and his son, Jesse Daigle. That bass anchored their limit weighing 19.99 pounds, good enough for second place.

Third place in the first tournament was nailed down by Matt Hebert and Josh Sons, who put five bass weighing a hefty 18.59 pounds on the digital scale.
The Owenses got bit that day, too, but despite a nearly 3-pound average the size wasn’t what they wanted, plus their fishin’ hole was too congested.
“We fished one area we were catching a lot of fish in, decent fish, but there were so many boats it was tough to fish” the points and other prime areas they targeted and caught bass while prefishing.

Despite putting 14 pounds and change on the scale Friday, they opted to put the maddening crowd in the rearview mirror the next day.
“After that we decided to go north (for the second tournament on Saturday) and it was a great decision. We thought there’d be less pressure. When we scouted we caught some good fish but not any big ones,” he said, noting catches of several 4-pound class bass but none heavier in the area between Solon’s Landing and Blue Lake.

“We actually ended up using a weightless Senko. It wasn’t longer but it was thicker. I would say that was the key to getting bigger ones to bite, for sure,” he said.

They fished outside buckbrush trying to get bit by spawning bass in 2- to 2 ½-foot depths. Around 10 a.m., with only a 4-pounder and a “dink” in the livewell, it got very interesting when he pitched his soft plastic into buckbrush.

He faintly felt a bass pick it up.

“I thought I was stuck,” he said.

Then Raven saw his line moving away and slammed the steel home on what would be his new PB. He said the big bass didn’t fight very much before going into the landing net wielded by his wife.

“Oh, man, we were pumped up. I honestly didn’t know the fish was as big as it was when it was held up in the net. I thought it was close to 5 pounds,” he said.

His personal best easily outweighed his previous PB, a 5.7-pounder.He trolling motored another 15 feet from the bush harboring the 9-plus pounder, cast and nailed a 5.2-pound bass. Before the run was over he culled a 3-pounder caught by Brandy, leaving their smallest bass at 3 ½ pounds.

Romero and Kelly had 20-plus pound five-bass bags both days, starting with Friday when they sacked up a limit weighing 23.42 pounds for the W. They returned to the scale the next day to notch a strong runners-up finish with five bass at 23.05 pounds.

Bedding bass were the name of the game for Romero and Kelly. Naturally, there are some big females spawning this time of year and they ran into a few of them, including Romero’s nearly 10-pounder the second and last day of the tournament.

“It was amazing,” he said.

Romero attributes their win to persistent and successful scouting before the tournament. It carried over into Day 1.

“We had an awesome first day. We had an awesome trip. One almost 7. I think we had a 5. Another close to 4. A Kentucky almost 3 ½! Day 1, we probably culled out five or six times,” he said. “We left an hour early there just to leave our fish. We didn’t want to burn them out.”

Their go-to bait was a Zoom Z Craw, a soft plastic bait.

“I don’t think it mattered what you threw at them because you’re hitting them on the head pretty much (inside a bush),” he said.

Catching bass on Day 2 proved to be more challenging and they still compiled a 23-plus pound limit.

“The second day was a struggle until I got the 9.60-pounder,” he said, adding he believes it was a lunker he missed on Day 1.

On the return visit the second day, he said, “I flipped in there and it hit it. I set hook and … nothing there. I went back again, flipped, backlash.”

After he straightened that out and made a few cranks, he got a pleasant surprise.

It was on. I was hollering, ‘Get the net!’ ” he said.

The 9.60-pounder was bigger than he thought at first glance. He realized just how big it was when he cradled it in his hands.

Romero weighed the fish on his scale and the digits read 9.9. A bass angler fishing nearby offered to weigh it on a Bubba Smart Fish Scale, which showed 9.60.

The second day tournament’s third-place winning team of Levi Louviere and Travis Kelehan brought in five bass weighing 19.59 pounds.