LOREAUVILLE – New Iberian Brad Romero has been on top of his game more often than not in local bass tournaments this year from Lake Fausse Pointe to Toledo Bend.

Romero and Blaine Miller of Loreauville kept his roll going May 3 with a convincing win on Lake Fausse Pointe, where their five-bass limit weighed 11.28 pounds to win the Coteau Bass Hustlers’ fifth tournament of 2025.

Their winning limit also included a 3.59-pound bass caught by Romero during what he described as a tough day of bass fishing. As it turned out, the bassin’ was tougher for the other boats that launched at safe daylight from Marsh Field Landing.

Marlin Hebert and Caiden Carline, the runners-up team that day, came in with only four bass but they weighed 7.56 pounds. Glenn Richard and Bradley Louviere, meanwhile, grinded all day to come back with five bass weighing 7.08 pounds.

“Did I think we had close to 12 pounds?” Romero asked, rhetorically. “I thought we had 10.”

Ten pounds would have been more than enough to win, nevertheless. The winners, though, had no idea about that, particularly because the struggle was real for them early in the day.

Romero’s top spot while prefishing and his first destination of the day didn’t pan out at all because of the fickle lake, which has been mostly high this spring.

“We went back in there Saturday. The water was chocolate milk. I knew they still had fish. We threw and threw. He had one pull off,” Romero said, noting they didn’t have a keeper bass in the boat at 10 a.m.

“We left there and went to another spot. We tried there. I hooked about a 2 ½ (but) … it got me in a tree and ends up coming off. I asked him (Miller) if he was ready to go to his house,” Romero said, still half-serious.

They stayed at it after making another move – this time to the borrow pits, where he believed they could catch five keepers but a little on the smaller side and did limit out on an undisclosed artificial lure.

He hooked and boated three in the 3-pound class or over but he also missed a few big’uns due to a fishing rod that finally got benched.

“If I have the fish “on” there we would have had close to 15 (pounds),” he said about two 4-plus pound class bass that got away.

He blamed a fishing rod that has let him down before whenever a sizable bass hooks up. The fishing rod, designed for crank baiting but used for another type of bass fishing, has been shelved.

“There’s no room for error. I have lost multiple big fish and I will not be using it again. I’ve never had an issue on any other rod … it’s a great crankin’ rod but it ain’t happening again. I don’t want them jumping off and I don’t want them popping lines, I tell you that,” Romero said.

On the positive side, he said, “We had a good time. I tell you this. Blaine sure was a good net guy that day.”