CYPREMORT POINT – The Oakdale Boys, plus two others, rode again on their way to a dream finish in the 71st annual Iberia Rod & Gun Club Saltwater Fishing Rodeo.

Dr. Patrick Savoy and Chad Bailey, both of Oakdale, Joe Rustom of Winnfield and Colby Mayeaux of Vidrine fished in Savoy’s intricately wrapped 37-foot long VH Freeman on their way to two titles in the holiday fishing rodeo July 4-July 6. Outlaw was flying the American flag as well as small pennants for choice offshore fish the crew boated.

The big boat’s appearance was one of the highlights on the third and last day at the IR&GC fishing rodeo site along Quintana Canal. A 100-plus pound grouper was a big reason the boat, powered by four 300-h.p. Mercury outboards, claimed a second straight Boat Captain’s Award.

Savoy was proud he and his crew defended the title.

“The guys who fish out of here (Cypremort Point) are good fishermen. Those guys have been fishing here all their lives. It’s really an honor,” Savoy said about the back-to-back titles. “I knew it was going to be tight. I thought we lost by one fish.”

Outlaw won by the width of a fin, so to speak. The razor sharp margin of victory was 13 points to 12.8 for the Sea Mistress, a 36-foot Lafco hull with a winning tradition in this part of the Gulf.

As luck (none good) would have it, one of the runner-up boat’s fish was a second-place mangrove snapper weighing 8.6 pounds caught by Lannie Buteau of Jeanerette. The first-place mangrove snapper also weighed 8.6 pounds but the tiebreaker was when each hit the scale and skipper Andrew Godley on his 39-foot long Freeman, Ghost in the Marine, weighed his fish July 4.

Ghost in the Marine finished third with 8 points.

Jacques Hebert of Patoutville, skipper of the Sea Mistress, which he loves to keep in tiptop condition, tipped his cap to the Outlaw.

“Look, those guys are good fishermen. They’ve got a good boat. Pat’s been fishing a long time,” Hebert said.

Rustom, a 36-year-old dentist who practices in his hometown, was the Offshore Division Best All-Around Fisherman with a larger winning margin than that for the Boat Captain’s Award. His 11.4 points eclipsed the 7.4 points by Buteau, a veteran of many fishing rodeos, and the 6 points by Godley.

The Outlaw was out on the high seas for the first time this year, Savoy said.

“We were kind of flying blind. (But) we’ve got a good crew and we fish hard,” the 59-year-old general and vascular surgeon said.

Well, Outlaw wasn’t totally in the dark for the trip. Savoy prides himself in the fact he studies satellite images, ocean temperature breaks and current flows, which he did to put together a game plan.

Water temp’s important, even if it is a surface reading.

“With bottom fish it doesn’t seem to matter about all that but for surface fish it does,” he said, even if the water’s a mere 1 or 2 degrees cooler than another region.

After leaving at 1:30 p.m. July 3, Outlaw’s crew caught bait on the way out before its first stop at a deepwater rig, The Anchor, 150 miles offshore. They got their yellowfin tuna and blackfin tuna within two hours there, then traveled to a grouper hotspot – a hump in 650-foot depths that comes up to 550 feet. They got hung up at first and lost a couple hooks.

“It took two hours before we got a bite,” Savoy said.

That 107.2-pound grouper inhaled a 3- to 4-pound dead bluefin, then shook an 8-foot long Poseidon fishing rod with a Penn 80 Wide spooled with 250-pound braided line. Savoy had the fishing rod custom built for grouper fishing.

Rustom set the hook and the deep sea tug-of-war was underway.

“They’re a tough fish. Very strong. I was fortunate to get him up off the bottom,” he said about his personal best grouper.

The fight took 20 minutes. The grouper, safely deposited in the boat, had an old, rusty hook in its mouth, a sign it won at least one previous fight before meeting Rustom.

Its appearance at the fishing rodeo site drew a crowd. Getting it out of the boat and onto terra firma into a fish cart was a yeoman’s task the crew and fishing rodeo helpers met.

“Grouper always stand out when they get that big,” Rustom said.

Outlaw rode away with two first-place fish (Rustom’s 27.8-pound barracuda was the other); a second-place grouper (Rustom’s 19.2-pounder), and three third-place fish (Rustom’s 22.6-pound blackfin tuna, Rustom’s 13-pound bonita and Mayeaux’s 18.6-pound grouper).

“It was a great trip. We caught a lot of fish,” Rustom said in an understatement.

Savoy praised the dentist and said, “Man, he’s tough. He fishes hard, barely sleeps. We all caught fish but he caught the big ones. He’s the first to throw a bait in the water and the last to throw a bait in the water.

“We’ve been knowing each other a long time. We’ve been fishing as a team for about two years. You can’t bring just anybody. Everybody’s got a job … like a well-oiled machine. Everything’s so smooth on the boat.”

It takes a long minute to name all the fish those on the Outlaw hooked and boated, both fishing rodeo fish and non-fishing rodeo fish. They talked about it around the supper table Friday, Rustom said.

“There’s no fish left in the ocean to catch,” he said with a laugh.

The list includes yellowfin tuna, blackfin tuna, lane snapper, Vermilion snapper, barracuda, rainbow runner, hardtail, bonita, jack crevalle, horseye jackfish, red snapper, almaco jack, red snapper, bonita, amberjack, yellowtail snapper, big eye snapper, mahi-mahi, mangrove snapper, Warsaw grouper, porgy, yellowedge grouper, scamp grouper and gray triggerfish.

The yellowtail snapper caught by Mayeaux is a potential Louisiana state record, Rustom said.

The Sea Mistress’ game plan was spot on as the local boat headed due south to the 289 Rock about 77 miles out, the skipper said. Buteau got the fish they wanted there … the fishing rodeo’s only king mackerel.

Hebert said he planned the trip for the slower boat to stay in shallower water rather than go join the chase for yellowfin tuna and blackfin tuna. Save for the timing of their appearance at weigh-in, which bumped Buteau’s mangrove snapper to second, his plan worked. After the first stop, Sea Mistress traveled a little farther out to fish five rocks, each about a mile apart, in the area of the Picket Fence.

“It was a very good, very nice trip. The weather was excellent. The boat ran well,” Hebert said.