The majority of the boats and people probably could have handled the rain Friday. But it was a no-go with the high winds that whipped waves as high as 6 feet both days.
The three-day fishing rodeo, which still boasts a large field of boats, mostly in the Inside Division, limps to a conclusion today. The scales close at 1 p.m.
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The Buteauxs and C.J. Buteau of Jeanerette and Johnny Buteau of New Iberia encountered mostly 4- to 5-foot seas with the occasional 6-footers.
"I think we did fairly well," Happy Buteaux said as he watched fishing rodeo officials handle their fish at the scales. "I think we would have done better if we targeted snappers, kings and lings. But it was really rough today," he said.
Sideline was the only Offshore Division boat to dock at fishing rodeo headquarters along Quintana Canal. Johnny Buteau and C.J. Buteau each had two first-place fish, blackfin tuna (17.2 pounds) and dolphin (22.1 pounds), and bonita (12.0 pounds) and barracuda (24.3 pounds), respectively.
To a man, they also were disappointed they didn't catch yellowfin tuna.
In fact, 6-foot seas knocked off the radar, lights and VHF aboard Pier Pressure, a 24-foot Pro-Line carrying skipper Wade Estis, Billy Helveston, Drew Helveston and Zane Zager.
Estis took the Boat Captain's Award last July in Pier Pressure. He was hoping to repeat.
Pier Pressure left Thursday night but had to return when a crew member got sick. That's when the waves crippled the boat's marine electronics.
"We came in and put everything back together as good as we could. We took off and headed back out, got on the trout and ended up catching a few mangrove snappers and jack crevalle there around Block 6. It was getting close to 5 o'clock. We started heading in and one engine shut down on me. We came in 8 mph, from 40 miles out," Estis said. "We put her on the trailer. We decided just to sit back, count our losses and see how the other guys do. We broke enough stuff."
That's how many responded to a call from Gerrit Landry, skipper of Absolut Addiction. A computer problem knocked out the outboard motor.
The first boat to "help" broke down, Landry said. No More Money, a 24-foot SeaFox, towed Absolut Addiction across Marsh Island as far as the game warden's camp, as its known locally, before an outboard motor conked out. Bobby Muffoletto's What A Day ran out of gas.
That was three strikes and they were out. The winner was … Devin Legnon in his boat, Cypremort Charters, who ushered in Absolut Addiction.
Legnon had something to go with his Good Samaritan act. He had a 20.3-pound jack crevalle in second place in the Runabout Division.
Landry said, "We broke down at 10 o'clock this morning. Then we broke three other boats. That's bad luck. That's all you can call it."
It was a fitting end to a bad day of fishing for Heith St. Germain and his brother, Josh St. Germain, both of Sorrel, who recently bought the No More Money. They fished all night and didn't get a bite, then weathered the west wind that eliminated 50 percent of their favorite fishing holes, Josh said.
"We went to help them. We were in Bayou Lucianne and we went to help them in The Worm," he said. "It ended up four of us having problems."
Schoeffler's amberjack drew oohs and aahs from the crowd as weighmaster Chad LeBlanc called out the weight: 101.3 pounds.
That fish probably would finish first atop the CCA-Louisiana's S.T.A.R. contest that started May 26 and ends Sept. 3. But Schoeffler didn't register in that ongoing contest.
"That's the biggest (amberjack) I've caught. I was strapped in a harness and all that. You can handle them," he said. "I had 15 minutes of a lot of fun."
He shrugged his shoulders after posing for a photo with the monster fish, which bit on a live hardtail.
"Like I said on the way out, if we'd bought tickets we wouldn't have caught," he said.
Schoeffler fished with Stuart Hill, Thomas Hill, Britt Schoeffler, David Fisher and Michael Duhon, all of Lafayette.
The New Iberia angler walked away with two of those slabs in first and second place, including the winning 1.08-pounder.
Kohnke teamed up with Bobby Musso of New Iberia to fish the Freshwater Division. They fished the Shell Field around Duck Lake in the Atchafalaya Basin, an area Musso grew up fishing.
"I thought it'd be great. I fish sac-a-lait all the time. We decided to come do this, have some fun," Kohnke said.
"We had to work for them. How many we caught, Bobby?" he said.
Musso, who made regular appearances here in the Offshore Division in the 1990s, said they caught five sac-a-lait big enough to consider putting on the board and 20-30 "throwbacks."
"This is the worst day we've done since last month. We were going and getting 20, 30 every trip," Kohnke said.
Don St. Germain, 77, of Cypremort Point, was unable to fish Friday due to a death in the family but got back from services in Mississippi late Friday and went out Saturday with his son, Glenn St. Germain of Jeanerette, and granddaughter, Taylor Hebert. They were in the Lil' Saint, which brought his first-place fish in from Marsh Island.
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