After trying to suck on a Loreauville fisherman’s finger, a long leech got sucked up by a big bass last week while Allen Rini Jr. was on a fishing trip at a borrow pit along the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee near Lake Fausse Pointe State Park.

And Rini, 30, couldn’t be prouder of the 21-inch bass he helped land after it was hooked by his girlfriend, Denise Kibbe of Loreauville. The fact it bit on a smorgasbord of an offering — leech and earthworm — made the catch even more interesting and satisfying on his latest outing.

“I hadn’t been for a while and started missing it. We had been going pretty much — about twice a week. We’d been catching mostly catfish and big drum,” said Rini, a pipe welder for Schick Steel Erectors.

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Rini and Kibbe had gone the night before to the spot without success but watched as what seemed like thousands of mayflies landed on the water and got sucked up by fish at the surface. They decided to go the next day, which despite looking like a good day for fishing really wasn’t as the catfish and bull drum weren’t cooperating, he said.

“We were sitting there waiting to catch a bite. I saw a big leech swimming by, about six, seven inches long,” he said about the moment about two hours into the fishing trip.

Remembering he once read about such creatures being good for bait, he reached out and caught it. He decided to put it on his best rod-and-reel combo, a Quantum baitcasting reel loaded with 10-pound test line and a Shimano fishing rod.

“It took a while to put the leech on the hook. It was kind of tough and it started biting on my finger,” he said.

Rini disengaged the bloodsucker from his finger and impaled it on the hook next to the earthworm. Then he cast it out and a heavy sinker took it to the bottom of the deep hole he has been fishing for a while.

After about an hour with no action on any of the fishing rods, he called it quits. Kibbe picked up the fishing rod with the special combination of natural bait.

“We were about to leave and he told me to reel it in. I kept telling him there was a fish on the line. He kept telling me there wasn’t. When it got about 3 feet from the bank, I told Allen he had to come and reel it in for me. He had to get it because it was too heavy,” she said.

“She said ‘Oh my God, it’s a big fish, a big fish.’ I had to jump in the water to catch it,” he said. “I thought it was a good chance a catfish had grabbed it. But we hooked on to something a lot better.”

“Yeah, that’s the biggest fish I ever caught,” said Kibbe, who admitted she really doesn’t care to fish. Rini, on the other hand, who’s been fishing since he picked up a Snoopy pole at age 4, is a gung-ho fisherman.

“We go because it gives us something to do. He’s like, really excited about the fish,” she said. “He measured it on the ice chest. He said, ‘Man, I’ve gotta call my daddy. He’s not going to believe this. We took it home and Mr. Alan (Rini’s father Alan Rini Sr.) took pictures of it.”

“It’s a big one. I know it’s big enough to put my whole hand in its mouth,” he said.

“I never caught a big fish like that before. It’ll be a long time before I catch one that big. I fileted him and we ate him,” he said.