What began as a plunge last fall by two young Teche Area bass anglers into competitive bass fishing culminated in a berth in this week’s prestigious 2023 Bassmaster Junior National Championship at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

Hollis Vincent, 11, of New Iberia, and Vincent Soprano, 12, of Charenton, could reel in one of the biggest titles in the sport.

The Catholic High School Fishing Team’s first-ever Junior Division members qualified for nationals in a postseason tournament in May following a regular-season that began in September 2022 and ended with the state championship in April. With Hollis’ father, Brock Daigle, in the captain’s role for all but one tournament, they fished the 2023 Strike King Bassmaster High School Series Open on May 7 at the Red River out of Natchitoches, where they finished seventh to punch their ticket to Lake Hartwell.

“We’re very excited. What started off as, ‘We’re going to do this for fun,’ is ending up with a trip to nationals. We didn’t expect to make it this far,” the elder Daigle said July 11 during another busy week of preparation.

Daigleand his wife, Ashley Charpentier Daigle, drove over at 5 a.m. Monday in time for the first of a three-day official practice period before the two-day tournament starts Thursday. Brock towed his 2005 Ranger bass boat with a 115-h.p. Mercury outboard motor with his F-150 pickup truck.

Soprano’s stepfather and mother, Arthur and Schuyler Hebert, planned to hit the road with Vincent on Monday evening. Both families are staying at an Airbnb in Fair Play, South Carolina, which is west across the lake from Green Pond Landing near Anderson, where the elite field will launch each day of the tournament at 6:20 a.m. ET and return for the weigh-in at 1:20 p.m. ET.

Arthur Hebert, a Louisiana Department of wildlife and Fisheries biologist in Lafayette, is proud of his son and Hollis.

“I tell you what, they’re both better fishermen than I am. I’m very proud of Vincent. He’s an outdoorsman,” Hebert said.

Jacob Shoopman’s unbridled enthusiasm for the team was evident recently. The 35-year-old Lafayette bass angler, formerly of New Iberia, is the coach who started the CHS Fishing Team in August 2021.

“It’s exciting for our program, only our second year and first year for the junior program. They really earned their way there fishing a ton of tournaments throughout the season to get a shot at nationals. I’m really happy that all the hard work paid off,” Shoopman said July 14.

Their captain was the key, he said.

“The amount of time and effort he’s put in as captain is impressive. That goes a long way. I couldn’t be more proud of him and the boys. They’re going to do good over there,” he said.

Tommy Abbott, Louisiana High School Bass Nation director, said, “It was a very consistent year for them.”

Young Daigle and Soprano also are favorites among the women who help run the tournaments all over the state, Abbott said in a text July 13.

“They are favorites with our lady volunteers. They brought chocolate and gave it to the volunteers out of the blue (in May at the Red River. And they are tiny and shy (laughing emoji inserted),” he said.

The Bassmaster Junior National Championship features 127 teams from 32 states. All Junior Division anglers are second- through eighth-graders.

Glenn Cale, B.A.S.S. Nation tournament manager for college, high school and junior bass anglers, said last week, “I think people will be amazed, not only by the knowledge these young anglers have of the sport, but by the size of the fish they bring to the scales. What they know and how they perform at a young age really shows how the sport of competitive bass fishing is evolving – and gives us a good idea of the kind of competition we’ll see at the higher ranks in the future.”

Young Daigle, who will be a sixth-grader, and Soprano, who will be in the seventh grade, are proof. Despite their first year of tournament competition, they had three Top 5 finishes in five of the six tournaments on the schedule, missing only the April 1 tournament at Manchac’s North Pass.

The CHS Fishing Team wound up seventh in the overall standings. But they weren’t done fishing after the state championship held April 22-23 out of Doiron’s Landing, Stephensville. After their clutch Open performance opened the door to the Bassmaster Junior National Championship, Daigle talked to a local outdoors writer about the team’s success and pending trip to Lake Hartwell. “We were already going to the Open. As soon as it was announced, I said, ‘Man, we love this sport. What’s one more?’ Being our first year, we didn’t know this could lead to nationals until later on, after we got rigged up,” he said.

That time has arrived. Daigle’s weeks of map study, poring over bass fishing videos and tournament recaps related to Lake Hartwell, will be put to the test while he prefishes with the boys this week. Captains cannot fish on tournament days but can run the boat and offer advice on fishing techniques and patterns during competition.

Daigle, a 42-year-old welding teacher at the Iberia Parish Career Center, has accumulated as many “site specific” artificial lures as possible because this is a lake unlike they have ever fished. The 56,000-acre impoundment’s fishery’s primary players are largemouth bass, spotted bass and Bartrams redeye bass, a native species making up a very small part of the black bass population.

Lake Hartwell’s forage base includes mostly blueback herring and threadfin shad, as well as some gizzard shad and a typical mix of crawfish and sunfish. Bluebacks typically influence locations and behavior of bass and figure into many bass anglers’ fishing patterns.

“I’ve done lots of research on the Internet, Google Earth and YouTube, trying to get as much information on Lake Hartwell as possible, to see what the lake looks like and how it holds structure throughout the dry years and throughout floods,” Daigle said.

“We have an idea. We just don’t have a master plan. I guess it’s like raising children. You have an idea how it’ll go but you don’t know until you do. We plan to fish the northern part of the lake. We’re just going to go look, see what looks good. What the boys want to fish we’re going to fish,” he said.

Hollis, he said, wants to try some patterns in open water. His son is more experienced with a baitcasting rig while his partner has used a spinning rod and reel combination much more often.

Each will have both baitcasting and spinning combos at hand to tackle Lake Hartwell.

Daigle said he is looking forward to Wednesday night when Piers Picou’s family from Central Catholic High School in Morgan City has a fish fry for the 10 Junior Division teams and their families from Louisiana.

Hebert tipped his cap to the team’s captain.

“Oh, Brock is a great guy. I like him a lot. I trust him with my boy. I think he’s trying to figure out fishing,” the veteran biologist said about Soprano.

How much does it matter whether the young team walks across the stage with fish to weigh?

“It doesn’t matter what it means to me. It’s them … just to watch the smiles on their faces will be the best thing in the world for me, just seeing them being happy about it,” he said.

Both Daigles said they are feeling the nerves already.

“I am. Just for the platform it’s on, the level, on a national stage,” Brock Daigle said.

His son said, “I am because there’s way more people fishing it than I can imagine.”

He also said the task at hand is to “catch fish. We have to work for them. I hope the boat doesn’t break down. I hope it’s not as stumpy as it was at Toledo Bend. That freaked me out.”

Whatever happens, the national competition will have its benefits.

“I’m hoping out of all this just being on the national level puts a little more coal in the burner so they can come out swinging next year,” the elder Daigle said.