MORGAN CITY — A Youngsville bass fisherman didn’t plan to be the last one to weigh his catch a week ago Saturday at the conclusion of a Walmart FLW Bass Fishing League tournament in the Atchafalaya Basin.
Brooke Morrison said he waited to be last in line for a good reason. He was in the last flight of boats fishing the BFL’s Cowboy Division, he said, which partly explains why he was among the last “boaters” to weigh in.
The weighmaster, he said, even made note of the fact the eventual winner was the final angler to weigh in his bass.
“He said ‘I knew somebody was sandbagging.’ I really wasn’t. I was just holding my fish in the livewell for the fish’s care. I don’t like having fish in the bag for a long time when it’s hotter than 85 degrees,” Morrison said after he won the tournament and $2,694 with five bass weighing 17 pounds, 9 ounces.
The 41-year-old bass angler, co-owner of Billeaud’s Too, an eatery in New Iberia, demonstrated that practice several times last year during Lipari Outdoors Adventures Hawg Fights, including the Classic, held in the Atchafalaya Basin. He prefers the fish he catches to be as healthy as possible when released after a tournament.
Morrison had five good keepers to release, including the tournament’s biggest bass, a 5-pound, 15-ounce bass he caught late on the day of the BFL event in the Spillway. There was a key to putting bigger bass than anybody else had in the boat while fishing an increasingly popular fishin’ hole.
While prefishing Thursday after serving up breakfast and lunch plates at Billeaud’s Too, he discovered a pattern that proved successful two days later.
“I felt real strong about it. I went out after work on the Thursday before and probably had one of the best scouting days I ever had. I’d pull up to a tree and catch a 4-pounder, trolling motor up to the next tree and catch a 4-pounder. If I made another cast, I’d catch another fish,” he said a few days after savoring the big win, which ranks up there with winning bass boat valued at $18,000 in a Super Hawg Fight about 20 years ago at Toledo Bend and taking home $5,000 after a two-day Doiron’s Team Bass Challenge Classic in the mid-2000s out of Stephensville.
“It was just one of those days I could do nothing wrong. But in practice I figured a way I could catch bigger fish. I put it to use in the tournament and it really won the tournament for me. A lot of times, it’s the little things. It’s something different,” he said. “There was lot of pressure in the lake (two other major bass tournaments were held that day in the region). I think any time you can find something a little bit different, that’s the key.”
The difference-maker on this occasion was a 3/8-ounce Chatterbait affixed with a plastic skirt he made and a green pumpkin twin plastic trailer.
“For whatever reason, I put that on there, and it all just went to working. I said ‘Look at this!’ ” he said.
It worked the day of the tournament. Morrison said he caught an estimated 25 bass, including 15 keepers, while fishing “west of the Atchafalaya River.”
“I think, what I found in practice, is that the wind-blown points and wind-blown structure, the deeper stuff, it seemed like that’s where the better fish were. If you reeled to fast, you’d catch a small one. If you slowed down and kept it in the strike zone, which was anywhere in the 3- to 5-foot range, then you could get a bigger bite. But you had to slow down.”
He upgraded his catch throughout the day and saved the best for last. After a tournament boat that had camped on a 30-yard stretch of cypress trees he had prefished cranked up and left after midday, Morrison made a pass and enticed the 5-pound, 15-ounce bass to bite the Chatterbait.
“That’s really what sealed the deal. About 30 minutes before that I caught a 3 1/4-pounder and that fish culled out a 2 3/4-pounder. I had some other 2 3/4-pounders in the livewell. About 30 minutes later I caught the big one and it really got my weight up there.
“These big postspawn fish are coming off the spawn and don’t have a lot of fight in them. It wasn’t much of a fight at all,” he said about the tussle with the 6-pound class bass. “The medium-sized fish just slammed it; really just choked the bait way down. They wanted it. The big ones just kind of picked it up and the line got real heavy. I’ve never been successful on a Chatterbait before. Those two or three days, they wanted it.”
Second place went to Ronnie Buquet of Houma, whose five bass weighed 15 pounds, 2 ounces for $1,347.
Randy Durand, a St. Martinville native who is living and working in Texas, finished third with five bass weighing 12 pounds, 11 ounces for $898.
Rounding out the Top 10 were Jeremy Guidry of Opelousas (12 pounds, 10 ounces for $629); Bryan Adams of Monroe (12 pounds, 8 ounces for $539); Travis Merritt of Iowa (12 pounds, 6 ounces for $494); Kent McPhail of Lubbock, Texas, (12 pounds, 2 ounces for $449); Les Miller of Morrilton, Ark., (12 pounds, 1 ounces for $404); Keith Hawkins of Missouri City, Texas, (11 pounds, 14 ounces for $359), and Matthew Delaney of Pollock (11 pounds, 8 ounces for $314).u