MANY – The St. Mary Parish-based Louisiana Bass Anglers definitely know what it takes to win the Southern Bass Club Association Elite 8 state tournament at Toledo Bend.

Quality and quantity are the keys to victory, the eight-man team proved last year when it celebrated winning the inaugural Elite 8 title at the conclusion of the two-day tournament April 26-27, 2024. The combination paid off again May 2-3 BUT for another bass club team catching plenty of bass and more bragging-size bass than the other 20 teams the first weekend of May.

The Bayou Bandits, a bass club out of Denham Springs, brought a 12-fish limit weighing 43 pounds and change to the digital scale both days at Cypress Bend Resort. The 2025 champion’s two-day total weighed an unbeatable 82.84 pounds, including a 7.51-pounder on Day 1, to collect $8,000.

The Denham Springs team led wire-to-wire. Still, Bayou Bandits needed to survive an ill-fated comeback by the Louisiana Bass Anglers on Day 2. LBA’s Elite 8 team rallied from third place the first day of competition to finish second – 2.31 pounds behind the Bayou Bandits – with 80.53 ounces worth $5,000.

“We felt good. We had a feeling we’d finish Top 5. We didn’t feel we’d win it. At least, we didn’t think so,” Bubbie Lopez said about him and his Louisiana Bass Anglers teammates. “We needed a solid limit (Day 2), which we did. We were just a couple pounds shy.”

The Centerville resident and Franklin native fished with Levi Louviere of Lafayette, formerly of Franklin. Pairings for the other Elite 8 qualifiers from the LBA were Dickie Fitzgerald of Charenton and Tony Sinitiere of Franklin, Louis Daigle of Franklin and Travis Harmon of Lafayette, and Johnny Hester of Lafayette, born and raised in Franklin, and Mike Louviere of Jeanerette. Lopez and Fitzgerald were co-founders of LBA.

Half the team was “on ’em” north of Pendleton Bridge, where Lopez/Louviere and Daigle/Harmon caught consistently before the other two boats ran north to join them, giving Sinitiere a chance to get his hands on a 6.26-pounder. Daigle hooked and boated a 5.90-pound bass. They culled to their 12-fish limit for 42.36 pounds and held third going into Saturday.

The team’s confidence level was high Friday night, Lopez said.

“We caught fish all day. We just couldn’t get big bites. We had two boats down south, two boats up north. If we had both of those boats up north both days we probably would have won it,” he said.

Their Day 2 limit weighed 38.17 pounds to give them their two-day total of 80.53.

Daigle, a 55-year-old commercial fisherman and crawfisherman and the bass club’s captain by virtue of his 2024 Angler of the Year title, tipped his cap to the winners and his team.

“They caught good. Their biggest one was around 8 pounds (7.51 on Day 1). They fished the same area we did. I think three of their boats were in the same area as we were,” Daigle said.

As for the LBA, he said, “It was a tremendous effort. All the boats contributed to the limit each day.”

He was proud of his partner’s 5.89 on Day 1.

“I took him (Harmon) in a hole I’ve never caught a big fish and said, ‘We’ll make a quick pass.’ He throws a frog and catches that fish,” he said.

Most of the bass he hooked bit on a white Jackhammer Chatterbait fished around cypress trees early during the shad spawn, he said.

Daigle was proud to finish second and ahead of other bass clubs from Acadiana. So was Lopez, a 59-year-old production manager for Perdido Energy.

“I felt good. Greer Billeaud talked crap all week,” Lopez said about Billeaud, a Lafayette bass angler who fished with a new bass club team, Team Boudin.

Daigle said, “We outperformed the local clubs. We outperformed the ’Scopers.”

Team Boudin was 9th with a two-day total of 54.42 pounds.

Lopez spent 10 days on the lake while prefishing for the Elite 8. He doesn’t love it any less, he confided.

“Oh, no, I never get tired of the lake,” he said with a chuckle.

The Bayou Bandits who posed proudly under the pavilion with the winner’s plaques were Shane Normand, Britt Richard, Ray Myers, Joe Redmond, Henry Goudeau, Joel Hedrick, Christian Extine and Jason Leetz. They had 43.28 pounds the first day and came back the second day with 39.56 for a two-day total of 82.84.

One Teche Area bass angler walked away with the “big bass money” of $850.

Ron Boutte of New Iberia, slammed the hook home on a 7-pound plus brute on Day 1 while fishing with Bullet Bass Club teammate Al Falcon of Lafayette. Boutte, a Jeanerette native, and Falcon were flippin’ docks with a jig-n-soft plastic combo.

“We came to one dock that had brush around it. I flipped a jig over the brush and popped it out of there. I saw the bait coming out of there. I set hook on the fish and the fish took off with it pulling drag,” Boutte said. I told him (Falcon), I said, ‘Get the net.’ He said, ‘Wow. That’s a good one!’ I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ I fought it for maybe a minute and got it into the net. The jig came out of its mouth.”

That first bite of the day came on the ⅜-ounce, green pumpkin Stanley Jig with a summer craw-colored Zoom Chunk tied to the 20-pound Vicious fluorocarbon line spooled on a Daiwa reel seated on a Cajun Lures fishing rod.

Boutte, 47, said, “We high-fived. We said, ‘This is going to be a good day!’ ”

That 7.78-pounder wasn’t his PB. He caught a 10.13-pound hawg years ago on Toledo Bend, he said.

Unfortunately, they added just one more bass to the livewell.

He had a great memory, though, and said, “I was excited about that. It was my first time fishing the Elite 8 and managed to make history already for the Bullet Bass Club. I’d like to thank my guys who participated and I’d like to thank SBCA for making us feel at home. They were nice.”

Another Teche Area bass club finished 11th in the 21-bass club field. The Louisiana Bass Cats put a 31.07-pound bag on the digital scale on Day 1 and weighed in 29.26 pounds on Day 2 for a two-day total of 31.07 pounds.

LBC team members were Kevin Suit, Mike Sinitiere, Brandon Sellers and Bo Amy, all of New Iberia, Gerard “G.D.” Dupuis of St. Martinville, and Jacob Shoopman, Todd Robertson and president Max Stevens, all of Lafayette. Shoopman caught the team’s biggest bass, a 4.45-pounder on a Superbait buzz bait on Day 1.