Bass, crappie and bream fishermen who frequent the canals of Crackerhead can’t help but to have seen a solid brass plaque mounted on one of a pair of modest-sized cypress trees standing in the water off a canal bank.
Many wonder about the story.
Well, Leonard Kleinpeter put the plaque there.
When Bubby Duplantier and Kleinpeter were both in their late 30s, they began bream fishing together and became best friends. “He just loved to catch bream,” Kleinpeter chuckled.
They fished together for decades. Then in October of 2016, Duplantier and his wife Suzy were brutally murdered in a robbery in Baton Rouge. The loss affected Kleinpeter deeply.
He knew right away where to mount the plaque after it was made.
“The spot is where my old padnah and me used to fish all the time,” he said. “If he ran the motor, that’s where he went first every time.”
The “Old Buddies” plaque stands as a silent sentinel to a long fishing friendship.