HENDERSON — St. Martinville cousins and neighbors ventured outside the Teche Area’s evening bass tournament circuit they dominated last year and checked in with a win the last week of May in the Wednesday Afternoon Fishing Dawg Fights bass tournament at Henderson Lake.

Braxton Resweber, 25, and Austin Theriot, defending Angler(s) of the Year on the New Iberia-based Wednesday Night Hawg Fights Bass Tournament Series circuit that fishes mostly the west side of the Atchafalaya Basin and in Lake Dauterive-Fausse Pointe, topped a 27-boat field in the Lafayette-based WAFDF tournament May 26 out of Cypress Cove Landing. Their three-fish limit weighed 8.45 pounds, including a clutch 4-pounder.

“That was nothing but luck. We just fished because we didn’t have nothing else to do,” Resweber said. “It always feels good (to win). I’ve fished Henderson before. I feel if we spent more time over there we’d be competitive.”

They needed every ounce because Mike Babineaux, fishing alone, had a limit weighing 8.28 pounds. He weighed his bass before the cousins weighed theirs.

“Whenever I saw 8 something I said, ‘Braxton, I don’t know if we’ve got it now,’ “ Theriot said.

Resweber said the winners were unable to prefish for the tournament.

“I’ll take luck. I don’t give a poop. You can’t win without luck. We fished the conditions. We threw a frog and fished kind of close to the landing. Topwaters and a jig. We got four keeper bites,” Resweber said.

Theriot came through to put the first keeper in the boat, a solid 3-pounder on a jig. Later, Resweber nailed the 4-pound bass on a plastic frog and also caught a small keeper on a jig that wound up being the third bass in the limit they put on the scale.

“I knew we had a chance. Our first two fish were a 3 and a 4. But we needed one more fish to have a shot,” Resweber said.