Alex Lassalle, left, smiles as Thomas Derise holds biggest bass.

LOREAUVILLE —  Young Thomas Derise, an up-and-coming bass angler, apparently has a good eye.

Derise, 14, believed from the minute his cousin, Alex Lassalle, landed a bragging-size bass that it would be the biggest bass of the third Wednesday Night Hawg Fight Bass Tournament Series tournament at Lake Fausse Pointe. The 4.50-pounder was, indeed, king of the day as it turned back several other 4-pound class bass to win $280.

“He was excited. He netted him, put him in the boat, and said, ‘Yeah, that’s what we needed right there,’ ” Lassalle said.

“I said, ‘There’s a bunch of big fish in this lake. I don’t know what the others will show up with.’ (But) he was pretty certain we had big fish once we put it in the boat,” he said.

Of the 28 boats on the water out of Marsh Field Boat Landing, none had a bigger bass weighed by weighmaster Mike O’Brien of New Iberia.

Derise, a Catholic High School student/athlete who plays football for the Big Red, obviously was happy to cash in.

“He actually got in the truck, pulled out his wallet and wanted his share (of the big bass pot). He was excited. He said he was ready for the next one,” Lassalle said.

It was their second straight outing in a Wednesday Night Hawg Fight Bass Tournament Series.

“He’s starting to get into that one (WN Hawg Fight BTS). We’re going to start fishing that,” Lassalle said.

Their Wednesday night outing was nothing to write home about for the first 1 ½ hours. They went to their first spot, which was muddy, left, and tried another spot with no luck.

The third destination was a charm. After 7:15 and before 7:30, their fortune changed. They got a bite.

“That was our one bite all afternoon,” Lassalle said.

And he made the most of it after the cast to the end of a deadfall reaching into the middle of the bayou. The Texas-rigged, Okeechobee-colored Netbait Pac-a-craw under a 3/8-ounce didn’t far very far, he said.

“I pitched to the edge of the laydown where it forked. The minute it got in the fork under the water, that fish was on,” Lassalle said.

“I had a good hookset, right through the top lip,” he said.

The bass had other plans in the thick underbrush, though.

“It took a little while. It felt like forever to get him out. It was kind of tangled up in there. I was finally able to get him out and (Thomas) scooped him up in the net,” he said.