MYETTE POINT — That an 8-pound class gobbled up one of his
homemade crank baits meant a lot to someone who has caught several
bass that size in his bass fishing career.
Jeanerette bass angler Clifton August set the hook on the “hawg”
Tuesday while fishing in the Atchafalaya Basin. When the fight was
over, and his bass fishing buddy Tony Rochon of Jeanerette had
lipped the bass, August celebrated with Rochon.
“You know, it’s gratifying bcause I use my own baits. It’s the
hours I put into making and testing them. That’s the reward,”
August said as he pointed at photos of the 7-pound, 15-ounce bass
on the screen of his cell phone around midday Saturday.
Don’t get him wrong. August, 64, was excited about catching a
bass that size in the nation’s last great overflow swamp. There
aren’t too many 7- and 8-pounders that come out of the west side of
the Atchafalaya River.
But this one did on a day before the heavy rains came. August
and Rochon caught a dozen bass, including that big’un, weighing
more than 3 pounds.
August said he cast his “minnow”-colored crank bait and
retrieved it around a tree when the big bass hit. He was using
15-pound test line loaded on a Shimano Core fishing reel seated on
a 61⁄2-foot long Falcon Lowrider fishing rod.
“When it hit, we knew it was a big fish. At first we thought it
was a choupique but it wasn’t fighting rite (like a choupique). It
didn’t go into the mud,” August said. “Then we realized it was a
big bass. After a while, it tired out.”
But without a net, Rochon had to overcome a “panicky” period
when he tried to grab and lift it into August’s 17-foot aluminum
boat.
“I told him to lip the fish and put it in the boat,” August
said.
He reluctantly kept it to mount it, he said.
August, a widower, works offshore in the oilfield as a
self-employed welder. Many of his jobs come with Offshore Energy
Services Inc., Broussard, he said.
The U.S. Army veteran is no stranger to big bass. He caught a
7-pounder in Lake Dauterive-Fausse Pointe in the mid-1980s and an
8-pound bass in 2007 while fishing a Quad State Bass Club
tournament at Lake Ray Hubbard in Dallas.
August also hooked and landed a 63⁄4-pound bass once in the
Spillway.
His homemade artificial crank baits and spinnerbaits are coveted
by the members in the huge bass club, which fishes tournaments in
Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. He joined it
several years ago when Larry Dennis of St. Louis, formerly of
Jeanerette, asked him several years ago to fish a tournament with
him out of Doiron’s Landing, Stephensville.
They finished second in April in a tournament on the Red
River.
“Man, I’ve got people in the club who want to get that bait from
me. As long as I’m fishing competitively, I won’t put it on the
market,” he said.
August said he got into bass fishing soon after he got out of
the service in 1970. He quit for a five-year period before resuming
again three years ago, he said.
Now he has another trophy.
“I didn’t think they had fish like that in the Basin. That
fishing day was a dream day,” he said.
“I had reservations about putting the fish back. It’d just go
right back to the nest and somebody else would catch it. I usually
don’t keep them, especially that big.