LOREAUVILLE – Two New Iberia bass anglers who are cashing in more often than not as a team or individually fished slowly to put bigger and bigger keeper bass in the boat April 13, then had to act fast to keep them alive.

Bo Amy, who has won three straight local bass tournaments, and Donald Romero Sr. teamed up to handily win the Louisiana Bass Cats tournament at Lake Fausse Pointe. They got most of their limit early, then added bigger keeper bass before dealing with a setback.

Their five-fish limit, including a dead bass because of a faulty aerator, weighed a hefty 16.49 pounds, including a 5.13 pound bass. Based on most tournament results so far this year, their result was the exception rather than the rule before and after a high-water situation in late March.

“I wasn’t expecting us to do that good,” Amy said, noting it was a grind for him the previous day when he and so many other tournament boats were on the lake.

On April 12, the day before Amy and Romero won the Louisiana Bass Cats tournament out of Marsh Field Landing, the Coteau Bass Hustlers’ winning team brought back 9.72 pounds from the lake and, Amy, fishing  solo, took a long boat ride from Franklin to the lake and back to win an 18-boat Louisiana Bass Anglers tournament with 10.09 pounds.

Amy and Romero paced the Louisiana Bass Cats in the April 13 tournament that featured four 5-plus pound bass and five limits weighing more than 13 pounds. Dieter Gidman and his guest, Nolan Gaskin, both from the Lafayette area, finished second with their limit tipping the digital scale at 15.08 pounds and a kicker weighing 6.07 pounds.

Gidman and Gaskins’ 6-pound-and-change hawg wasn’t the lunker bass of the day, however. Jacob Shoopman’s 6.38-pounder topped the quartet of big’uns and anchored a limit weighing 14.74 pounds for third place after a day on the water with his father and long-time tournament partner, Don Shoopman.

The younger Shoopman’s biggest bass chomped on a spinnerbait in a borrow pit along the levee. As he played the heavy fish to the boat, he realized it was hooked near the outside of the mouth, so he played it around the bow, avoiding the trolling motor, then into a waiting landing net, and the hook fell out after the successful scoop.

Amy and Romero, who won the Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series tournament April 2 with a 6.14-pound bass, had a good start to the latest Louisiana Bass Cats tournament and were cruising before an unexpected challenge that Sunday.

“I went scout Saturday. Bo went fish that other tournament. I found a little spot where I hardly see anybody,” Romero said.

“I told Bo, ‘Look, I found this little spot’ ” they could start the day and take it from there, he said, noting they probably could get a quick limit and take it from there.

“Donald found some fish for us to catch a limit. We ended up catching four keepers there, then we went where we thought they had some bigger fish. The first fish we caught was a 3. The second fish we caught we ended up culling one,” Amy said.

Then he caught a 3.88 and the 5.13-pound bass. A little later a 4.42-pounder went into the livewell.

The pattern?

Romero said their bigger bass bit on watermelon/red Zoom Baby Brush Hogs fished oh-so slowly around outside cover.

After a flip, pitch or cast, he said, “You had to jig it, let it go back down. You couldn’t let it move away from that spot and sometimes it took two or three casts. They were sluggish. I told Bo, ‘Just keep working it up and down.’ The fish wanted it up and down so you weren’t pulling it forward, away from them. Just up and down. Pull it over a branch, press the button and let it go back down.”

“All we did was fish slow. Catch one here, catch one there. Whenever they were biting they were off the bank and in the treetops, stuff like that.,” Amy said.

Around midday they discovered the boat’s aerator wasn’t aerating. That caused quite a bit of consternation onboard.

“One of the bigger ones started laying on its side. We went to another spot. I called my dad and asked him to meet us at the landing with an aerator pump,” Amy said, noting they quit fishing two hours early, so who knows how much they might have upgraded. During the ride back to the boat Marsh Field Landing, he said, one of the 2-pound class bass was dead.

“Whenever we got back and put bubbles on them, they were jumping in the livewell. The big one was good. That was all I was worried about.”

Romero also was concerned during the dilemma. The team’s only solution was to quit early, he said.

“Look, we stopped fishing at 1:15, 1:30. Our fish were dying. He called his daddy to meet us at the landing with an aerator pump. We lost one,” Romero said, referring to the dead bass that carried a .25-ounce penalty. “The other fish came back strong. He put an aerator in there and I tell you that brought them back. That’s all it took.”

The other 13-plus pound limit was recorded by LBC president Max Stevens and Gerard “G.D.” Dupuis with 13.97 pounds for fourth place.

The fourth 5-plus pound bass, a 5.23-pounder, was caught by Todd Robertson and Eric Smith, whose limit weighed 13.07 pounds to finish fifth.