Young bass anglers punch their ticket to nationals
Two up-and-coming young bass anglers, two fishing families, a lot of traveling and a lot of staying together added up to a state championship at the end of the 2025-26 Louisiana Youth B.A.S.S. Nation (LYBN) season for Cole Watkins of Hammond and Brantley Broussard of St. Francisville.
And that state championship win propelled Cole, the son of Luke and Jennifer Watkins, and Brantley, the son of Brett and Ashley Broussard, to the Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Junior Championship scheduled for July 24-25 at Kentucky Lake.
That Watkins/Broussard still had nationals to fish this summer was a hard-earned reward for 2025-26. After all, the No. 1 goal was to qualify for the Bassmaster Junior Championship.
“He (Cole) was an amazing partner. I was glad to have him this year. I sure wish I could have him next year,” Brantley said about the freshman-to-be at Ponchatoula High School.
Cole’s sentiment was the same for his tournament partner.
“My year with Brantley was the best so far in my four years of fishing LYBN,” he said. “We got along well. We fished together well and he’s a very skilled fisherman.”
It went down to the wire but they got ’er done, as Cole’s mother noted, after eight months, nine cities, three states, 10 lakes and rivers, 5,420-plus miles on the road, countless practice hours, nine LYBN qualifiers and two Bassmaster Junior Series Open Qualifiers before punching their ticket with 8.71 pounds in the Spillway out of Doiron’s Landing. They had excruciating near-misses in the Opens at Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in Florida and at Lake Sam Rayburn.
A super successful year
The two anglers, enjoying their first and only year together, proved to be a formidable pairing with valuable experience behind each in the Junior Southwest Bassmasters of Denham Springs. The team boasted five Top 5 finishes and nine Top 10 finishes this past season on the LYBN trail to finish third in the race for Junior Bassmaster Anglers of the Year.
They fished the Spillway side with Brantley’s dad as captain in his Bass Cat Lynx powered by a Mercury ProXS 250 to win the state championship out of Doiron’s Landing in Stephensville.
The combination paid off despite an unseasonably late cold front just before the state championship tournament. While prefishing, they found bass that would have given them a limit of 15 or more pounds in the Big Pigeon area.
“Everybody struggled,” including the eventual winners who scratched at their first and second spots, the elder Broussard said.
The boys never gave up.
“I cannot say enough awesome things about how that day went,” said the second line supervisor for Exxon Mobil. “We ended up culling in the Flat Lake Area.”
“What was going through my mind was to keep moving to spots and figure it out,” Brantley said. “I caught most of my fish on a pink/white double-bladed spinnerbait.”
Favorite baits
Cole, whose favorite artificial lure is a black Delta Lures buzzbait with a gold blade, said they “put in a lot of effort” during several weekends of scouting for that state tournament.
His father, a consultant for ELOS Environmental LLC, said he’ll take his 203 Champion powered by a Yamaha 250 Sho to Kentucky Lake as a backup for the national tournament in late July. Broussard got the nod as captain.
“I’ll let Mr. Broussard do it since he’s never been to one before,” Watkins said. “Let him do the honors.”
“I think it’s going to be an amazing trip. It’s going to be my first time going to nationals. It’ll be my partner’s second time going,” said Brantley, who will be an eighth grader this year and on the fishing team at Catholic High School-Baton Rouge. “It’s pretty cool and amazing. I’m glad I could do this.”
Both young bass anglers know how to use forward facing sonar and both can run the front of the boat.
