THE DAILY IBERIAN
CYPREMORT POINT — With two days left in the 56th annual Iberia Rod & Gun Club Saltwater Fishing Rodeo, three things are clear after the first day Friday:
  
Advertisement
|
• The fish were biting most of the time, mostly in the afternoon, according to some field reports.
• Dozens and dozens of anglers are trying (and succeeding) to catch them.
The combination should be a tiring one for the IR&GC officials manning the scales at fishing rodeo headquarters at Quintana Canal. The scales reopen today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and again on the third and final day from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The first fish to wet a scale was a redfish weighed by Chris Kapp as soon as the scales opened at 2 p.m. Friday, fishing rodeo chairman Tonny Touchet said. Kapp’s 28.5-pounder was in second place in the Inside Division behind early leader Mike Broussard’s 31.6-pounder.
“He (Kapp) was waiting on us,” Touchet said about an hour later.
“We’ve got plenty of fish in today and they’re still lined up,” he said about the boats around the bulkhead.
“Busy, busy. Oh, I love it,” he said when the scales closed at 6 p.m.
One of the hottest boats out there, literally and figuratively, was the Sandman, a 20-foot Stratos skippered by Tim Sandoz. Sandoz fishing partner was Broussard, who caught the first-place red.
“Oh, it was beautiful. We had a good day. This is the best Fourth of July we’ve had for fishing in quite a few years. There’s going to be some fish caught,” Sandoz said.
“The prettiest water we found was in the Pass. We went to the east side and didn’t do too well."
Sandoz had a third-place redifsh at 28.4 pounds. Broussard also had a second-place sheepshead at 2.3 pounds.
Broussard forged the early lead for Inside Division Best All-Around Fisherman with 177 points, followed by Grant Myers with 153 and Jarrod Ransonet with 145. Sandman has the inside track on the Inside Division's Boat Captain's Award with 244 points, followed by T-Saint's 127.
The T-Saint’s crew is in a familiar position — battling for top trophies in the Inside Division. The 18-foot FishMaster’s skipper, Josh St. Germain, was looking ahead to the next two days of competition.
“It’s going to be a tight race the whole weekend,” St. Germain said before boarding his boat and leaving the headquarters.
Friday’s Inside Division leaderboard showed him with a third-place sheepshead (1.9) and third-place white trout (.62). The boat’s biggest bull drum, a 41-pounder, didn’t make the top three when the scales closed.
His crew included his brother Heith St. Germain and their father Glenn St. Germain. They started fishing at daybreak and quit at 5 o’clock Friday, he said.
“We went all over. We pretty much hit all the reefs in the Gulf east to west. It was all right. It was calm. It was definitely a nice day,” he said.
Was it too hot?
“Not with the top up,” he said with a smile.
Heith St. Germain said, “We caught a bunch of fish, reds and speckled trout ... not big enough for the board, though.”
Glenn St. Germain’s niece made her early bid to defend her Best All-Around Fisherman title in the Junior Division. Taylor ‘Tac’ Hebert, 13, who weighs all of 50 pounds soaking wet, had a first-place drum at 45.3 pounds and a second-place redfish at 18.4 pounds.
Taylor fished with her grandfather, veteran fishing rodeo angler Don St. Germain, and her father, Richard Hebert. The latter owned the first-place Inside Division drum going into the second day at 47.7 pounds.
She said she’s going all-out to win again in the Junior Division.
“Oh, yeah, I’m going to fish hard all weekend,” she said after fishing all day in "a few bayous, a family secret place and then into Vermilion Bay at Dry Reef.”
Young Gavin Gautreau, also 13, came in with two beautiful speckled trout in a landing net. The 4.3-pound and 3.3-pound fish grabbed first and second in the Junior division.
“I’m having a good time. I think they’ll stay on the board,” he said in an understatement after a day on the water with his father Barry Gautreaux, skipper of their 20-foot SeaHunt, Braelynn Gautreau and Amy Derouen and Abby Derouen.
Barry Gautreau said they caught speckled trout on live mullet. Their hotspot, he said after first declining to name it, was The Mounds.
He plans to return there today.
“I’m going after them again tomorrow. I’m going to bust their a--. We got on them today. They wanted them mullet,” he said.
Ben Delcambre, another 13-year-old angler, went out with his father Matt Delcambre in the Captain Nemo, a 20-foot aluminum boat. Laura Delcambre, 10, also fished.
At Chenier La Croix, Ben caught a 26.4-pound redfish on a cut croaker that easily moved to the top of the leaderboard in the Junior Division. He also fished at Pavy’s Reef and Boxcar Reef, his father said, after he they decided against going to Tee Butte.
“That was our plan,” Matt Delcambre said. “They had so many boats at Caldwell Reef in the Pass that we took a left. When Caldwell Reef’s full, Tee Butte’ll be full. So we fished Pavy’s Reef, Chenier La Croix and Boxcar.
How crowded was Tee Butte, a popular series of reefs along the coast just west of Southwest Pass?
“This morning I counted 38 (boats). Then there’s a bunch of boats in the Pass, at that long reef, about 15 boats there,” Elvis Jeanminette said early in the afternoon via cell phone while fishing with Jimmy Gary aboard Gary’s 24-foot Ranger.
Jeanminette said he and a guest caught 50 speckled trout at Tee Butte while scouting around Thursday. He and Gary had 17 speckled trout, some Spanish mackerel and a bunch of sharks at the time.
“We’re trying for croakers, sheepshead, something to put on the board. Right now we’re catching croakers in one little hole,” he said as Gary cast, set the hook and reeled in a nice croaker that eventually got weighed and bumped off the leaderboard in the Inside Division.
Comments