LOREAUVILLE – Bo Amy delivered an encore after Donald Romero caught the first keeper bass Aug. 14 to erase all doubt about them winning Angler(s) of the Year on the Wednesday Night Hawg Fights bass Tournament Series.

With the pressure off early during the 12th and final WN Hawg Fight BTS of 2024, Amy and Romero enjoyed the rest of the evening, hooked and missed a few bass before the highlight of their evening unfolded in a borrow pit canal at Lake Fausse Pointe. The exclamation point to their season was a 3.27-pounder that anchored their winning three-bass limit weighing 5.45 pounds worth $248.

Thing about it is, Amy set the hook on that bass once a few moments earlier and turned it. Then the line went slack. He cast again and hooked up again.

“I don’t know what made that fish come back. I know he hooked it the first time. He had it in a bind. Man, he was so sick when he missed that fish,” Romero said. “That fish hit it (again) and he ended up catching it on the other side of the tree. It could have been two of them. (But) I think it was the same fish.”

Amy was flipping a black neon Zoom Ultra-Vibe Speed Craw on a 4/0 hook under a 3/16-ounce Tungsten worm weight and the clock was ticking down to almost time to head back for the 8:15 p.m. weigh-in. They wanted to give themselves plenty of time to return to Marsh Field Landing, which meant departing their fishin’ hole at or a little later than 7:45 p.m.

That’s when it got real.

“Fifteen minutes or so before we had to leave, I thought I felt something. I reeled up and set the hook. It took off but got unbuttoned,”  Amy said.

Amy instinctively pitched back despite the miss, triggered another bite, then hooked and boated the biggest bass of the evening worth another $55.

“When he caught that one I said, ‘I think we’ve got big bass!’ We ended up winning and winning big bass. It was a heckuva accomplishment. We ended up pulling it off,” Romero said.

About that late catch, Amy said, “We were fist bumping and everything.”

That night they topped a small field that competed in the regular-season finale.

Local bass anglers Brad Romero and Raven Owens, who had a heckuva season, finished runners-up in the tournament and in AOY. Their three bass that hot, muggy night weighed 5.31 pounds worth $149.

Chris Vedrines of New Iberia and Jean Trahan of Lafayette were third with a limit weighing 4.18 pounds for $99.

Donald Romero, who turned 69 on June 23, said the recent win and AOY title were as sweet as winning a Texas Oilman’s Bass Invitational like he did with Larry Verret at Toledo Bend in March 2022, as well as taking the top prize in the Speckled Trout Division in CCA-Louisiana’s S.T.A.R.

Like Amy, a 37-year-old field service thread rep for VAM/USA, Donald Romero was oh-so proud. Since pairing up for the first tournament March 20, he said, they have prefished as much as possible.

He also learned to flip as well as give Amy the shots necessary, including lowering the PowerPoles, for a chance to catch bass in tournament sites at Lake Martin, Atchafalaya Basin, Henderson Lake and Lake Fausse Pointe.

“He positions that boat for the perfect cast. He will not stop till he gets that bait there. He gives me shots but the guy in front has to put himself in position to make that cast,” he said.

They stayed in constant communication, too, on and off the water. That was especially true going into the regular-season finale.

“I mean we’re going out there hoping to at least catch one fish,” Amy said.

They dispensed with any suspense quickly — “probably within 20 minutes,” in fact — when the 69-year-old Donald Romero, who retired as owner of Romero Fishing & Rental, an oilfield fishing tool company boated their first keeper-sized bass on a Zoom Super Fluke. The rest was gravy for the top team on the WN Hawg Fights BTS.

“When we (using the editorial ‘we’) caught the first fish I knew we had the year thing done. When Bo got that last fish I knew we had a chance to win,” Donald Romero said.

He warned another win could be in the near future at the WN Hawg Fights BTS Classic on Aug. 25 out of Myette Point Landing in the Atchafalaya Basin.

“If the water stays like it is, I think we have a shot at winning the Classic. I’ve got two spots,” he said.