As a district court judge in Vernon Parish, Scott Westerchil of Leesville has heard a lot of talk around the courthouse.
This week, he’s enjoyed it.
That’s because last Friday, Valentine’s Day, Westerchil found an 11.1-pound largemouth bass guilty of mistaking his Chatterbait for some kind of lunch entree – or literally, a mid-morning snack.
And this week, talk about the judge’s big Toledo Bend bass has been circulating throughout the hallways and courtrooms in the county courthouse.
“I went to court today and heard people talking about it,” Westerchil said. “That was kind of neat.”
But it wasn’t nearly as neat as catching the fish, which qualified for the Toledo Bend Lunker Bass Program.
Westerchil and fishing buddy Colby Hand were fishing a little tournament on Feb. 14, preparing for the Cold Front Classic, a big-fish benefit tournament the next day. In the back of a small creek in the Blue Lake area, they came upon some aquatic grass in the midst of a 20-fish day.
“It was a cloudy, light, variable day, with an east wind,” Westerchil said. “We were really practicing for the next day, but we were in a little tournament. We were in the back of one of the creeks, where, as it got shallow, there’s some hydrilla and milfoil. We were fishing in about 7 feet of water.”
What he used
At around 10:30 a.m., fishing a ½-ounce Chatterbait Jackhammer bladed jig, green pumpkin with a Biffle Bug trailer on an old Carrot stick baitcaster and Bass Pro Shops reel spooled with 12-pound, green Big Game mono, Westerchil was retrieving the bait very slowly when something didn’t feel right.
“It wasn’t a ‘tick’ like some bites; it just felt mushy,” he said. “Hooksets are free, so I set the hook, and there she was.”
A big fish, she rolled to the surface fairly quickly, and Westerchil and Hand saw that she was a big one, maybe not 11 pounds, but a big fish.
“She surfaced a little ways off the boat after the first hit,” Westerchil said. “We knew it was a big fish, but we didn’t know how big. She made several runs alongside the boat, but every time Colby tried to net her, she ran again and he had to wait. That happened four times.”
Finally, Hand got the fish in the net, and the two anglers celebrated.
“It was a killer moment,” Westerchil admitted.
Once the fish was in the livewell, Westerchil and Hand stayed out until the tournament weigh-in, around 2:30. Once they had the big fish weighed in and $500 in prize money in hand, they headed to Keith’s Toledo Bend Tackle to get her weighed on certified scales for the Lunker Program. At Keith’s, the fish measured 26 inches before being tagged and released. Westerchil will get a free replica mount of his life-best bass.
“She was a big, long, healthy fish,” said Westerchil, 61. “She was in great shape. She was jumping around in the livewell like a wild minnow.”
