Champ Morales proved what a competitive bass angler can accomplish when his boat and motor perform up to snuff, like his 21-foot Ranger powered by a 250hp Mercury ProXS rig did in 2025-26.
The 22-year-old Livingston outdoorsman rose to the occasion in his senior season on the Southeastern Louisiana University Fishing Team. Morales and freshman Grayson Aguillard won the 2026 Louisiana B.A.S.S. Nation College Series circuit Angler(s) of the Year title in a race that boiled down to the regular-season finale April 4 at Caney Lake.
“This year I’ve actually been able to fish,” Morales said, still riding high after winning the first and final events in four tournaments of 2025-26. “I haven’t had any major boat issues. I’ve been able to go out and enjoy.”
It hasn’t always been that way, starting with his first collegiate tournament partner, who fished with him the previous two years, and concluding with Aguillard.
“It’s been a long journey, man, as a team,” Morales said. “We’ve blown up more motors and had boat issues. Me and my old partner, Luke LeBourgeois, tore off a lower unit and blew up a motor. Actually got stranded on an island at Sam Rayburn for about eight hours.”
No net, no problem
Morales’ collegiate bass fishing career has also been plagued by unforced errors, the self-inflicted kind, such as the dreaded “left the (landing) net behind.” The senior had no net aboard for that deciding tournament at Caney Lake. He thought it might cost him and Aguillard the AOY despite their 24-plus pound limit because two 6-pound class bass got away.
“We had a chance to catch a really big bag but we dropped two 6-pounders in our hands at the boat. We thought we had 22 but we had 24-12,” he said, noting with a net they could have had probably 32 pounds, all on a Neko-rigged red bug Rapala Crush City Janitor Worm.
Morales and Aguillard’s five-fish limit at Caney Lake weighed 24.75 pounds, just enough to turn back Louisiana Tech’s Noah Roberts’ 24.125 pounds, including an 8-pounder, while fishing alone.
To claim AOY, the SLU Fishing Team needed to win at Caney Lake and for LSU-Shreveport’s Tyler Morris and Hunter Hamilton to finish below fourth, and that’s what happened as the Pilots were fifth with 20.125 pounds to finish with 894 points, merely 1 point behind Morales and Aguillard’s 895. LSU’s Peyton Matherne, who has been running the collegiate series and helped Morales restart a team three years ago at SLU, and Beau Landry tied Northwestern State’s Caleb Johnston and Dawson Cowden for third with 893 points.
Morales, a student/athlete who has worked parttime four years for Performance Contractors, and Aguillard won the college series’ opener in November at Calcasieu River, were sixth in December on False River, stumbled in March at Toledo Bend (which became a “drop” tournament) to set up the Caney Lake showdown.
A steep learning curve
Two rivers and a renowned big bass fishery were keys to AOY. It all ties in because for 10 years Morales’ “home lake” was the Amite River, where he caught his first bass at age 8 and his dad’s co-workers, Todd Vicknair and Chris Clemens, taught him more about bass fishing.
“I didn’t really know much about fishing except rivers around the house till I got to college,” he said. “It definitely was a learning curve. My first (college) tournament on Toledo Bend, I was fishing out of my dad’s center console. I was flipping cypress trees in about a foot of water — middle of summer on Toledo Bend.”
Speaking of landing nets, or no landing nets, Morales tips his cap to Aguillard. In the 2025-26 opener at Calcasieu River, Aguillard saved the biggest bass of the day, a 6.626-pounder hooked by Morales.
“The first tournament he ever fished with me, my partner saw (the fish) hung up on a log,” Morales said. “He lifted up the whole log and pulled it into the boat with the bass. Without him, I don’t know what I would do. He’s the best net man without a net that I’ve ever seen. He’s going to do good next year. That man wants it.”
As for Morales, it’s likely he’ll continue his full-time job and eventually get into Bassmaster Opens and/or Louisiana B.A.S.S. Nation.
“I can’t stay away from it,” he said.
In the meantime, he’ll keep fishing around home. In June, he’ll target small points and “hard spots” in the Tickfaw River by burning a shad-colored Bandit 300 crankbait through or across them. He also likes a green/white Booyah Pad Crasher Jr. along the river after launching at Bupaloo’s Landing, then fishing his way south about 5 miles toward Lake Maurepas.
