Legend-ary long run pays off for Carencro anglers

LOREAUVILLE — Double-dipping and getting away from the maddening crowd paid off handsomely Feb. 22 for two bass anglers from Carencro.

Drake Menard and Chris Mouton, Carencro Bass Club board members, realized their bass club tournament was scheduled earlier this year for the same day as the Sunset-based Atchafalaya Hawg Hunters’ annual Legends on the Lake bass tournament on Lake Fausse Pointe out of Marsh Field Boat Landing. Menard and Mouton and fellow bass club members decided to support the AHH and fish both tournaments that Saturday.

They won both tournaments, fairly easily, with five bass tipping the scale to 14.76(59?) pounds. They also boasted the lunker bass in both fields, which meant they pocketed $540 for first place and another $320 for big bass in the Legends on the Lake, plus three handsome plaques valued at $100 apiece.

They topped a 32-boat field that started at safe daylight with temperatures near the freezing mark. The results certainly warmed the winners after the weigh-in.

“Actually, it’s nice to be able to win one. I haven’t done a lot of tournament fishing the last few years and to finally be able to win one was nice. We had kind of an idea we’d have a pretty good day,” the 38-year-old Menard said.

Mouton agreed and said, “Man, absolutely. It’s the best feeling, especially with that many boats. It’s a humbling feeling. We were fortunate to get three plaques.”

They made a wise decision to get away from the pressure and a lake system that was fishing small because it was low and mostly muddy. Plus, two other tournaments — a Franklin-based Louisiana Bass Anglers tournament out of Franklin and a Fishers of Men National Tournament Trail event out of Stephensville – were held Saturday.

“We went out Wednesday. We made a long, long run way up north.  We decided to run as far away as possible from Fausse Pointe Park. We decided to go find something new,” Menard said. They made the run both days in his 19-foot Champion.

“We said, ‘Look, we’ve got to get as far north as we can to get some fresh bass,” Mouton said.

Actually, Menard said, they fared better in the bass-catching department Wednesday than Saturday. A bone-chilling cold front roared through the region between the day they prefished and tournament day.

Mouton, also 38, said their best five bass Wednesday would have pushed 16, 17 pounds and bit on a variety of artificial lures, including swim baits, spinnerbaits and soft plastics.

The change in the weather from shirt-sleeve to coveralls was a factor, in a big way, Menard said.

“It affected how we caught the fish but we used the same area. We just had to adjust to get them to bite,” he said. “We had to slow it down tremendously

Menard, an oil field slickline service worker for Warrior Energy, and Mouton, a delivery driver for Cintas, had their five-bass limit between 8 a.m.-8:30 a.m. They wound up boating 10 keeper bass from the muddy water.

“Slowly through the day, we upgraded,” Menard said.

“We knew the fish were there. We just had to grind it out, get the bites,” he said. “It’s one of those things. We just had to put our chins down and hope we conked one on the head. It was an extremely small strike zone. ”

How small? In the 3-foot depths the bass were holding, they had to flip to wood with vegetation around it to get bit. The black/blue, Beaver-style soft plastic they were using had to be placed perfectly and, like he said, hopefully hit a bass on the nose.

“Sometimes you almost had to hit the fish,” Menard said.

Menard hit the right fish at mid-morning. 

“Somewhere around 10 o’clock I put what we thought was a 4 ½ in the boat. At that time we figured we’d have a good chance as tough as the conditions were going to be. We thought it would be pretty good for the day,” he said.

That bass, they found out later, was a 4.39-pounder, the biggest bass of the day.

Mouton said they were pumped up.

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Once we put that one in the boat, we were able to start culling,” he said.

“We had a good day. We missed a couple fish but pretty much caught all that bit. We had to put it in their face. We were pretty much flipping and punching lilies or grass.”

The Carenco Bass Club Open is scheduled for May at Henderson Lake. For more information call 288-5581.