CYPREMORT POINT – After winning the Cypremort Point Invitational Fishing Association’s Redfish Division in 2023, Kyle LeBlanc has staked his claim to winning first place this year in the Speckled Trout Division.

The all-around outdoorsman from New Iberia is the saltwater fisherman to beat in the 40th annual CIFA tournament that began at 7 a.m. July 6 and ends at 7 p.m. on Sept. 28. LeBlanc hooked and boated a 4.36-pounder on July 24 and it remains atop the leaderboard going into the tournament’s waning days of September.

LeBlanc, 34, believes that big speckled trout has a chance to stay in the top spot to the last second.

“It’s possible somebody could knock it off,” he said, quickly adding he believes it’ll win as his redfish did in 2023.

“Last year was the bull red. Probably, what I need to do, Is go catch a redfish,” he said, referring to possibly doubling up on the tournament’s cash winnings.

While LeBlanc is keeping up with the Speckled Trout Division, 12-year-old Max Baudry and his father, Jon Baudry, are monitoring the race in the tournament’s Redfish Division. The Loreauville Junior High seventh-grader has the “slot” redfish to beat after catching it Aug. 2 while fishing with his dad in Marsh Island.

These are exciting times for the Baudrys, who are fishing a CIFA tournament for the first time. Just like LeBlanc, they are hopeful it remains in first place at the time of reckoning.

“I think he has a good shot at staying in first place. He hopes it holds first,” Jon Baudry said earlier this week.

The elder Baudry, a 40-year-old project coordinator for Schlumberger, said they plan to make another trip this coming weekend, weather permitting.

Dago’s Mobil & Grocery in Lydia has been the official weigh station for CIFA. The standings are kept up to date there and by officials with the longest-running saltwater fishing tournament in the region for four decades.

LeBlanc, 34, a mechanic at Delta World Tire in New Iberia, accepted an invitation to go scouting with local charter boat captain Damein Clements, who owns DCFishing Services LLC. They got out of Cypremort Point that July 24 morning but couldn’t go far due to a storm in offshore waters leading to Tiger Shoals. They made a move that could decide the winner of the Speckled Trout Division.

“So we went to Tee Butte,” LeBlanc said a few days ago.

When they arrived, he said, “It was early in the morning, somewhere around 7, I’m guessing.”

The personable all-around outdoorsman was tightlining an ultra-violet Matrix Shad on a ¼-ounce leadhead in 4- to 5-foot depths on the east side near the end of the main reef when the speckled trout bit, he said. He got a bite he believed was from a catfish.

“It just kind of hit it and took off with it. Like I said, I thought it was a catfish. When it got closer, I felt the headshakes,” he said.

After Clements netted the fish, they deposited it in the ice chest. Later in the day, they took it out and measured it.

“I don’t think we really realized how big it was. I said, ‘Man, that’s a nice fish.’ I figured it was over 3 pounds. Even 3 pounds would put you ‘in’ in CIFA,” LeBlanc said.

The speckled trout was nearly 24 inches long and slender. At the end of the day, they entered it in CIFA at Dago’s.

Following LeBlanc in the Speckled Trout Division standings are Troy Amy, second, 3.34; Bo Amy, third, 3.06; Hunter Romero, 2.73, and Keyna Amy, 2.52.

Young Baudry, who has stuck fish on Junior Division leaderboards in both the Iberia Rod & Gun Club Saltwater Fishing Rodeo and St. Thomas More Fishing Rodeo, caught the front-running redfish at the mouth of a canal in Marsh Island. He was using dead shrimp on the bottom the first day of the STM event on Aug. 2.

“When he hooked that redfish, he was excited. He knew it was the size to get it on the board,” his father said, noting they took it to Dago’s that day on the way back to New Iberia and weighed it in at the fishing rodeo site Saturday.

The redfish was “right under” the 27-inch maximum length limit for redfish, he said.

Jon Baudry said he has been fishing in and around Vermilion Bay most of his life and most of the time with his father, Charles Baudry.

“We had to run all that before GPS,” he said.

Max started fishing at age 2 or 3, according to his father.

The rest of the Redfish Division standings show Jordan Morgan second with a 7.32; Matt Migues third with a 7.37; Robbie Champagne with a 7.20, and Lance Moss with a 6.93.