Fish fell for ‘a black Carolina-rigged lure,’ Chackbay angler says.
Fishermen can be some of the hardest-headed creatures. They’ll often ask people in the know about the best lures, the best colors, the best time of day to fish. And then the questioners find themselves doing the exact opposite thing. Count Bobby Chiasson, who goes by BigBoy225 on the LouisianaSportsman.com forum, in that number.
When he and approximately a dozen of his friends made their way to Caney Lake in early March, Chiasson began asking people on the lake what had been working. When he heard “white,” he began throwing “a black Carolina-rigged lure.”
That’s just about all he’d say about what he used during his fishing trip on March 12.
Probably not a bad idea because whatever Chiasson is throwing is working: He boated an 11.75-pound monster just after lunch that day.
And by his account, it was one that almost got away.
“I have one of those rubber nets that is supposed to not take the slime of the fish,” Chiasson said. “Well, she was hanging out of both sides of it she was so big when my buddy was getting her in the boat. When we swung her over into the boat, she flopped out onto the deck and my buddy had to jump on her, put her in a bear hug.
“He was saying ‘Don’t worry! She’s not getting away!’”
And for Chiasson, the one that didn’t get away is a personal best. He fishes Caney Lake near Monroe every year with a group of friends, and when he’s not working, he fishes any open bass tournament he can find near his Chackabay home.
But how about that brute of a fish he caught March 12? Well, the water was clear, as it often is in Caney Lake, and the skies were bluebird. A front had blown through on March 10, two days earlier, but things had settled down by the time Chiasson and his friends began fishing on March 12.
“I had my boat in about 13 feet of water, and I was fishing toward a flat that was about 7 feet (deep,)” he said. “I couldn’t see the beds, but I saw a bigger fish chasing a perch or something.
“So, I threw the bait past where I saw that and worked slowly through the spawning area. She took it.”
When Chiasson weighed the fish on his boat, it registered at “only 10 pounds,” but he knew his scale was off by a pound or so. When they finally reached an official scale and the giant fish began climbing all the way to 11.75 pounds, Chiasson knew he had something special.
“I knew my scale was off, but not by that much,” he laughed. “But I don’t mind. When it saw it going so high at the official scale, that’s when I really started getting excited.”
It was by far the biggest fish of the trip for Chiasson and Company.
“There were a couple guys who had 8-pounders, one guy had a 7-pounder and there were quite a few 5s and 6s,” Chiasson said. “But to have one this big, it’s special.”