Collin Tate is enjoying his first year with the Ragin’ Cajuns Fishing Team
Collin Tate got a big confidence boost the first time he fished as a collegiate bass angler for the University of Louisiana-Lafayette’s Ragin’ Cajuns Fishing Team.
After Tate graduated from Rayne High School, where he was on the fishing team all four years, he attended LSU-Eunice. He didn’t fish as a freshman. Going into his sophomore year, he enrolled at ULL, where Baylen Guy was jumpstarting the fishing team as president with the help of Vice President Noah Deshotel.
Tate and his partner from his senior year in high school, Will Guidry, teamed up for the first Louisiana B.A.S.S. Nation College tournament of the season Nov. 22 at the Calcasieu River. The Southeastern Louisiana University Fishing Team’s Champ Morales and Grayson Aguillard won the tournament with a 12.375-pound limit, including the day’s biggest bass, a 6.63-pounder.
Tate and Guidry nailed down second place with their own five bass showing 9.75 pounds on the digital scale set up at River Bluff Park. Their game plan worked as they rode as far north on the river as they could, then fished deadfalls, logjams and “stuff like that,” according to Tate.
“That was huge for us to go to our first college tournament and get second,” he said. “We were overjoyed. It was just something about it. We were very pumped up. It was a huge confidence booster for us. It showed we could compete, even though we were out of it for a while … hadn’t fished tournaments for a year.”
The 2025-26 season
Tate fished his first three high school seasons with Cameron Davis. After Davis graduated, he teamed up with Guidry, who was featured in Louisiana Sportsman magazine in July 2023. Now they’re together again and looking forward to the second half of the 2025-26 season.
Their schedule is fairly light, however, because of classwork, according to Tate, who’s majoring in electrical engineering. Tate and Guidry plan to fish two spring tournaments, one at Toledo Bend and one at Caney Lake.
“This is our first year. We’re just trying to do what we can. We both have a pretty heavy school schedule,” Tate said, noting they plan to expand their tournament activity as juniors.
“I feel like him and I have different strengths,” Tate said. “I like to fish slow and he likes to fish faster a lot of times. And we’ve been such good friends for so long. We get along great.”
He’s enjoying his first year with the Ragin’ Cajuns Fishing Team.
“Man, we love it,” he said. “It’s great talking to everybody, hanging out. It’s like another family, just to be part of the team. It’s awesome.”
How it started
The 19-year-old bass angler started fishing at a young age with his father, Beau Tate of Mire, and his grandfather, Steven Tate of Mamou. They targeted sac-a-lait and bream but never singled out bass. As a result, he began watching bass fishing videos and “got obsessed with it.”
His grandpa, who towed a camper to Toledo Bend, ended up getting a boat and they started fishing there together. As an eighth-grader, when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its height and schools closed in the spring, he and his grandfather “basically” lived on the lake and fished daily.
“After that I just fell in love with it,” he said.
Either his dad or Davis’ dad captained them in high school tournaments his freshman, sophomore and junior years, then his dad or Guidry’s dad did the same their senior year at RHS.
Both Tate and Guidry have Ranger boats. Tate’s is an 18-foot aluminum model pushed by a 115hp, while Guidry’s ride is an 18-foot fiberglass boat powered by a 150hp Yamaha Sho.
Tate’s favorite place to fish in March is Chicot Lake near Ville Platte. His go-to baits are black/blue or green pumpkin Zoom Speed Craws, which he flips around trees, or reels in a swim bait or bladeless jig. If he gets no takers, he tries a Chug Bug.
His favorite body of water, period, is Toledo Bend, particularly around Blue Lake and along Patroon Bayou.
