For a while, Brendon Sonnier of Kinder, La., was playing second fiddle to his 13-year-old twin brother, Bradley, in their father’s bass boat.
Bradley had caught a 7-pounder and a 7 ½-pounder, and Brendon’s biggest was a 6-pounder.
“We fish a lot at night during the summer, and Bradley had caught those two big fish. That was a sore subject for Brendon,” said their father, Rick Sonnier. “They’re competitive.”
Last Saturday, March 25, Brendon upset that apple cart with a 10.44-pound largemouth from Toledo Bend Reservoir. He’s even taken the family lead for Toledo Bend bass; Rick’s best from the 186,000-acre lake is 9 pounds, 5 ounces; he’s caught several double-digit bass from other lakes.
“I knew it was a big one,” Brendon said.
A great weekend
Sonnier’s 25 ½-inch lunker wasn’t the only big fish boated from Toledo Bend as April arrived on the calendar’s horizon. Also on Saturday, David Miller of Bossier City checked a 10.07-pound fish; Brent Broussard of Rosenberg, Texas, caught a 10.28-pound bass, and Stephen Owecki of Natchez boated a 10.64-pound lunker. Broussard’s and Owecki’s fish were caught in the Dylan Kyle Poche Memorial Bass Tournament.
Previously tagged fish
On Wednesday, March 22, Randy Williams of Mount Belvieu, Texas, put a bass on the scales at Fin & Feather Resort that had been there before. His 10.68-pound fish couldn’t make it a month between being caught twice. The fish had previously been caught on Feb. 25 by Joseph Taylor of Jennings. Just before it was tagged and released, it weighed 11.32 pounds. Williams caught it a second time, and officials with the Toledo Bend Lunker Bass Program examined the tag and determined that it was the same fish Taylor had caught almost a month earlier.
Brendon’s moment to shine
The Sonniers were on Toledo Bend last weekend because the twin brothers didn’t have any baseball games on tap. Rick Sonnier told the kids the night before to get a good night’s sleep, because they were getting up early, driving to their grandfather’s camp in Pirates Cove, and fishing all day at Toledo Bend.
“I’m talking to Brendon, and he said he didn’t think he was strong enough to pull in a 10-pound bass,” Rick Sonnier said. “I told him he was, and then, it happened that day.”
The catch came around 8 a.m. The Sonniers had already caught a couple of 5-pound fish, and a couple of smaller bass, when Brendon fired a Carolina-rigged Zoom Speed Craw (watermelon red) on a secondary point in about 6 feet of water near the mouth of a creek.
Fishing a Cast King baitcasting rod and a reel spooled with 15-pound Big Game, Brendon Sonnier said the bite felt like “just a tug.
“I knew it was a big one,” he said. “She jumped once. I told my dad to get the net. She came up and just about swam into it. It took 2 or 3 minutes.”
On a set of hand-held scales in the boat, Brendon’s fish weighed 10.4 and 10.5 pounds.
“We weighed him in the boat, then we fished a little while,” Rick Sonnier said. “The bite slowed down, so we took off.”
The Sonniers went to Living the Dream Guide Service’s headquarters and got the fish officially weighed at 10.44 pounds and measured at 25 ½ inches, then tagged and released. Brendon will get a replica mount of his fish.
“I really had to explain why we weren’t going to take that big fish home,” Rick Sonnier said.
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