“Well, so far, we’re surprised. We’ve got a lot of diehard fishermen,” fishing rodeo chairman Mike Chauvin said about an hour before the scales closed at 6 p.m.
Indeed, 10-12 boats stoppped by to weigh fish between then and the time the scales opened at 2 p.m. But the biggest surprise for the dedicated fishing rodeo workers was ahead as the number of boats docking to bring in fish doubled the total in the last hour.
  
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Those who did well early in the afternoon Friday stayed to watch the procession of fish and boats in the waning hours of opening day.
Mark Courville and Don Naquin, both of New Iberia, were among those who hung around and soaked in the atmosphere and friendly competition. They fished in Courville’s 19-foot Blazer “Big Daddy.”
Big Daddy’s assault on the leaderboard left Courville with the first-day lead for Best All-Around Fisherman in the Inside Division and the inside track to the Boat Captain’s Award. Courville has 225 points in the individual race while Perry Scott has 173 and Mike O’Brien has 164.
Courville also has 306 points in the Boat Captain’s Award race to lead Top Rod, 239, and Up and Down, 236.
Weather conditions didn’t seem to affect the leading boat as much as it did others.
“It ain’t bad until once you pass the Point,” Naquin said. “In The Cove, where we fish, the water was calm and the water’s pretty. All day we stayed right here on the bank all the way to the Point.”
Courville’s points came from a first- and third-place speckled trout at 3.20 pounds and .92 pounds, respectively, plus a third-place croaker at .56 pounds.
The biggest fish to go up on the Inside Division leaderboard Friday was Joshua St. Germain’s 45.7-pound drum, one of two big drum the boat “T-Saint” caught while the Jeanerette crew tried to find the best water conditions in and around Vermilion Bay.
“It wasn’t as bad weather-wise as I thought it would be,” St. Germain said after skippering the 18-foot Fish Master. “It was tough, bro, hard fishing.”
St. Germain fished with his brother Heith St. Germain and Jordan Hebert.
“Rough. Tough. Bad. Bad wind. Slow fishing. We caught some big drum this morning. That was the highlight of the day. We’ve got two small reds (redfish) not even worth weighing,” Heith St. Germain said.
The St. Germains’ grandfather Don St. Germain and his son-in-law Richard Hebert agreed. They had checked in already in the “Lil Saint,” a 20-foot WellCraft and watched as former Best All-Around Junior Division Fisherman Taylor Hebert hauled a 33.5-pound drum to the scale and atop the leaderboard in the Junior Division.
Her father said, “We went to the Pass. It was the only place where it was calm and you didn’t get bounced around too much.
“We went in several bayous (inside Marsh Island) and everybody we spoke to ...,” he said, shaking his head side to side. “It was slow, slow.”
The Junior Division’s defending Best All-Around Fisherman, Alyssa Broussard, made her bid for a repeat while fishing with her mother Natalie Broussard and Ronnie Dore Jr. in his 23-foot aluminum boat “Priority One.” Alyssa, 11, hit the board often after they emptied the ice chest but when the scales closed she was four points behind first-day leader Scott Segura, 493-489.
“She caught some garfish and flounder and we’ve got a couple 25-inch redfish. They’re nice,” Dore said as he watched Alyssa hand fish to weighmaster Mackie Boudreaux and Chauvin. “It was kind of slow but they started biting more in the afteroon.”
Broussard had first- and second-place redfish at 6.3 and 5.3 pounds, respectively, second-place croaker at .75 pounds, third-place flounder at 1.33 pounds and first- and second-place garfish at 20.0 and 11.3 pounds, respectively.
Segura, meanwhile, goes into the second day of the fishing rodeo with a first-place flounder at 4.33 pounds, first- and second-place white trout at .94 and .74 pounds, respectively, first- and third-place croaker at 1.26 and .71 pounds, and third-place redfish at 3.5 pounds.
Dore’s father Ronald Dore Sr. arrived about 45 minutes earlier after fishing with his wife Versa Dore and their granddaughter Ainsley Dore, who was very proud of the 19.9-pound drum she caught that moved into third place on the leaderboard in the Junior Division. The 6-year-old Jefferson Island Elementay School student caught the bull drum in The Worm inside Marsh Island.
Ronald Dore said it was a challenge to find fishable water as it was dirty and fresh, a development echoed later by the St. Germains and nearly everyone else who showed up at fishing rodeo headquarters at Quintana Canal Boat Landing.
“It was rough this morning. It was rough,” he said, emphasizing the third word. “The wind was blowing out of the east. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to cross (to their fishing destination at Marsh Island). Usually, we cross in 30 minutes. The wind was blowing sideways. We got soaking wet by the time we got there.”
Scales reopen today for the second day of the three-day holiday weekend event from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Scales will be open on the third and last day from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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