LOREAVILLE – Some good-sized bass started eating peanut butter and jelly meals on the move April 22 in Sandy Cove during the Jackie Savoy Memorial Big Bass Classic.

That particular flavor resulted in a big payday for Randal “Rooster” Savoy of Coteau Holmes, who was fishing with a long-time bass tournament partner, Brad Romero of New Iberia. Savoy’s son, Pierson, 10, also was in the boat.

Savoy’s 3/8-ounce peanut butter and jelly Chatterbait adorned with a blue sapphire Strike King Rage Craw accounted for a 2.80-, 5.46- and 3.46-pound bass. The 2.80-pounder won the second hour, the 5.46-pound bass took the fourth hour as well as big bass for the day and the 3.46-pounder was second in the sixth hour that Saturday.

“All on a Chatterbait, every single one of them,” Savoy said a few days later.

Those three bass netted the two-man team $450 in winnings in the Big Bass Division. The team also won the Five-fish Stringer Division with two other bass they weighed in.

Savoy and Romero’s five-fish limit weighed an unbeatable 15.38 for another $775.

“We just found the right brush piles that had fish in them. Actually, we found the right bait,” Savoy said.

The 42-year-old crawfisherman had the right bait knotted on the business end of his fishing line.

Why did that bladed jig work?

“They were feeding on bream, I’m guessing. There’s a little bit of brown in it. That might have done it,” Savoy said. “I’ve caught them on that color before when they weren’t eating.”

They made their first cast at 7 a.m. within sight of the Marsh Field Boat Landing, where 31 boats registered and left to fish Lake Fausse Pointe.

The Marsh Field Canal plan fizzled, perhaps due to a heavy rain Friday morning. That prompted the move to Sandy Cove, where the water was stained and anglers in other boats were probing whatever structure they found.

After a while, Savoy switched to the peanut butter and jelly Chatterbait and on his third cast hooked and boated the 2.80-pounder. They raced back to Big Bass Classic headquarters to weigh the fish before 9 a.m., then returned to Sandy Cove.

“Fifteen minutes after we got there I caught the 5.46. We went weigh in,” he said, adding they caught several other 1 ½-pound bass before the big bass hit.

“We came back and on my second cast I caught the 3.46. Fighting them in those reeds was kind of tough,” he said.

Later, his heart dropped at one of the hardest, most vicious strikes he ever had from a freshwater fish. Alas, it wasn’t the kind to take back to weigh for a bass tournament.

“I said, ‘If this is a bass, it’s a big’un!’ It wasn’t (a bass),” he said, noting it was a 15-pound class blue catfish.

Bo Amy, as he has done so often in the past in this annual tournament, put his name on the board four times. Unlike previous outings, he posted all four bass in the last two hours.

The New Iberia angler caught first- and second-place bass in the seventh hour and again in the eighth hour. All were under 3 pounds with his top two fish weighing 2.90 pounds and 2.34 pounds in the seventh hour, then 2.82 and 2.74 pounds in the eighth hour for a total of $610.

The big winners from last year’s big fundraising event had another good outing last Saturday. Raven Owens of New Iberia and his wife, Brandy Dugan Owens, pocketed two first-place checks with a 4.20-pounder that won the third hour and also weighed in a 3.58-pound bass to win the sixth hour to go home with $380.

Raven Owens and Brandy Owens also finished third and cashed in in the Five-fish Stringer Division with 12.30 pounds worth another $310.

The Owenses boasted three first-place bass, the biggest bass and the heaviest five-fish stringer in 2022’s Jackie Savoy Memorial Big Bass Classic.

Another team that hit paydirt more than once last weekend was that of local bass anglers David Guillory and Chris Guillory, a father-and-son team. David Guillory hit the big bass leaderboard three times with a second-place in the fifth hour and third-place showings in the fourth (3.38 pounds) and eighth hours (2.56 pounds) for $265.

The Guillorys also finished runners-up in the five-bass limit division with 13.68 pounds to add $465 to their payday.

Also cashing in three times was Phil Ransonet of New Iberia, who tallied with a first-place bass (2.50 pounds) in the opening hour and two third-place fish in the second hour (2.02 pounds) and sixth hour (3.22 pounds) worth $350.