HENDERSON – Veteran bass tournament angler Billy Billeaud of Lafayette had the bass right where he wanted them until, until he didn’t near the end of May.

The 63-year-old Lafayette bass fisherman, a regular in the Bassmaster Opens, fished his “hometown” lake a few times before deciding to fish the sixth Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series tournament on May 22. Billeaud teamed up with another formidable bass angler, his son, Greer Billeaud, also of Lafayette.

That evening tournament played out just like the elder Billeaud figured it might after he relocated the bass and developed a winning pattern. The Billeauds team proved to be too much for the 23-boat field when it dropped a three-bass limit weighing 6.70 pounds on the digital scale at Cypress Cove Marina.

The winners’ biggest bass was a 3.26-pounder, their second fish of the tournament and one boated by the younger Billeaud, who was fishing the exact same way as his dad on a lake that was close to unfishably high, or fishing like it, anyway. Only seven boats brought a bass to the weigh-in.

Brad Romero and Raven Owens, both of New Iberia, hit the leaderboard in style with a limit of bass weighing 5.20 pounds for second place worth $311. They are the hottest team on the WN Hawg Fights BTS circuit after winning the opener March 20 and the fifth tournament on May 8.

Young St. Martin Parish bass anglers Austin Theriot and Gavin Savoy cashed in with a third-place finish that night with 4.54 pounds for $207. The circuit’s 2023 Angler(s) of the Year fished together for the first time this year on a lake they have had beaucoup success on.

The Billeauds also have a history of catching bass when it counts on the lake, together and separately. Billy Billeaud, whose next Bassmaster Open contest starts June 20 at Lake Eufala in Oklahoma, said he was pretty sure the father-son team would cash in with their hard-earned limit in what proved to be a tough Hawg Fight.

“I felt real comfortable about getting a check. (But) there’s always a chance someone catches two 2 ½-pounders (and another solid keeper). I never felt we’d win or have big bass,” Billy Billeaud said.

Billeaud, who has owned Billeaud’s Grocery in Broussard 33 years and fished MLF and Bassmaster tournaments for years, talked about the winning pattern as well as the exact soft plastic, a black/blue Zoom Z Hog under a 1 ½-ounce punchin’ weight. He was introduced to that bait while fishing an Open as a Boater 1 ½ years ago.

At the time he was punchin’ a black/blue Strike King Rage Bug. It wasn’t producing for him but the black/blue Z Hog triggered strikes for the Non-Boater, who happened to own a bait shop.

Billeaud called the bait shop owner a few weeks later to order 500 packs (eight to a pack). Despite nursing the supply, he’s down to less than half after beaucoup bountiful trips like the one two weeks ago when he went through five packs at Toledo Bend.

Those Z Hogs paid off that Wednesday night. The elder Billeaud said he has found that black/blue soft plastics, even black/blue swim jigs, are favorites among bass, even in the clear waters of Henderson Lake.

After he caught bass consistently a week earlier in three different areas after “he just went fishing (for fun)” around midlake north of Interstate 10, things changed following a huge rise in the lake due to torrential rains in and above the region.

“I just kept on fishing and fishing. I ran out of stuff to fish, out of canal,” he said.

While prefishing for the tournament, he expected to catch bass in the bushes and cypress trees along the mounds, the high spots. He adjusted quickly and targeted that kind of structure on nearby flats.

The key to getting bit was to focus solely on punchin’ water hyacinths, even when there was 8 feet of water under them. Punch the Z Hawg, let it fall perhaps a foot and if there was no bite, move on and punch again, he said.

The hookset, he found out as he caught the winning team’s first, third and a fourth keeper bass in the win, had to be delayed after feeling the peck, peck, peck of a bite. Then the bait would get heavy. And the clincher was to just sweep the fishing rod’s tip sideways and lean on the fish.