PIERRE PART – An all-around outdoorsman known mostly as a veteran on B.A.S.S. and Major League Fishing circuits is hopeful another youth movement prevails during this coming weekend’s Every Fish Matters Foundation stocking event at Veterans Park-Assumption Parish Recreation District 2.

From 6 a.m. to noon dozens of bags of baby bass will be handed out to be released in nearby public waters, according to Cliff “The Cajun Baby” Crochet of Pierre Part. Crochet, who got the ball rolling on this hands-on stocking event three years ago with three annual fundraisers, can’t wait for it to get underway April 26.

After all, the largest private bass stocking project of its kind in the nation is right here in our backyard. Crochet and others behind it urge parents to bring their children to the distribution site to enjoy the experience this Saturday.

To date, following three fish stocking events (two were held in 2023, one in ’24), more than 150,000 F1 “Tiger bass” or native largemouth bass fingerlings have found a new home on either side of the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee. Crochet confided during last year’s event the goal is to stock 1 million fingerlings over the first few years, then set the sights on 2 million baby bass.

“The whole focus of the project is conservation and giving back to the resource,” he said at last year’s stocking event while being interviewed by WAFB-TV, Channel 9, in Baton Rouge.

“The Cajun Baby” got the idea a few years ago and shared it with his family, friends and community. Simply, the plan was to raise money to stock the region’s public waters with bass fingerlings on both sides of the levee.

“Every Fish Matters began when I realized something needed to happen because nothing was going on. OK. So raise some money, get as many fish as possible and as many fishermen involved as possible, the more raised, the more fish,” Crochet said in a Daily Iberian story in July 2024.

That message from the founder came immediately after his 3rd annual Every Fish Matters Conservation Banquet held last summer inside the Assumption Parish Community Center in Napoleonville. Nearly 300 men, women and children who shared a common interest attended the most recent fundraising event.

Money raised that evening buys the fish that will be stocked Saturday. All bass fingerlings since the project began have been delivered from the American Sport Fish Hatchery in Alabama, which stocked 1.2 million fingerlings in public waters in 2024 in 13 states, including F1s in Lake Claiborne in Louisiana and Florida bass in Toledo Bend.

Baby bass arrived here last year following a 10-hour ride in a special hatchery truck with six oxygenated tanks that each hold 115 gallons of water. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries personnel and volunteers put 300 to 500 tiny bass per bag half-filled with specially prepared water, plus an ample shot of oxygen in each, and distributed to waiting outdoorsmen, most of them who arrived in tow vehicles pulling a boat.

It’s a sight to witness first-hand. And quite a feeling to get to where you want to release the babies in a place you and others like to target bass around Stephensville or inside the Spillway.

Like Crochet said in the last hour or so of last year’s event, “It’s good to see the end result after a lot of work. You see a lot of families. You see a lot of people outdoors.”

“This is a real big event in our community. There are a lot of volunteers working hard for conservation.”

The second-ever banquet was moved to the parish’s community center because the site for the inaugural fundraiser, held inside a church hall here July 28, 2022, was too small. After taking in $82,000, two public stocking events were held in Spring 2023, one March 25 when 15,000 2-inch long F1 “Tiger bass” fingerlings were released out of Doiron’s Landing, Stephensville, and 50,000 1 ½-inch long F1s distributed April 15 from the park in Pierre Part.

Last year’s summer fundraiser went to the purchase and release of 82,000 pure largemouth bass fingerlings on May 11, 2024, out of Pierre Part.