Reeling in a Trophy

Sacred Heart High School has a rich history of championship teams that have made their way through the Halls of Troy. This fact is exemplified in the trophies that line the trophy cases in the school’s foyer including a state championship trophy in football, baseball, and softball.
For the first time this year, a group of more than 20 students has an opportunity to bring home a different kind of trophy. This trophy will not be won on the field or on the court but in the water as Sacred Heart is now home to a fishing team.
“It’s awesome,” said junior Wesley Launey. “I never thought that we would have a fishing team. I’m glad, and it’s fun to do.”
Fellow junior Tristan Soileau agreed. “It’s something new, and it’s something that we get to try,” he said. “It’s the first year we have it, so hopefully it’ll grow and teach us a lot. Some of us already know a good bit, but fishing out on a big lake or a river shows us a lot more than on just a small pond in Ville Platte.”
The idea came about when Holden Manuel and Peyton Feucht went to their fathers Tony and Todd to see if they could get it started. The elder Manuel and Feucht met with Chris Brignac and Mark Jenkins and got them on board.
“We then had a meeting with Dawn (Shipp) the principal and approached her with it,” said Tony Manuel. “We talked about it with her, and she was all in for it. It took off from there.”
The faculty coach of the team is Bubba Daigle, who advised how coaching fishing is compared to coaching football. “It’s totally different,” he said. “We’re trying to outsmart a fish instead of another coach and his offense and defense. Fishing is challenging this time of year, too, when the fronts come in and push the fish deep.”
“I’m just excited about getting this started,” he said. “The kids are excited, and I have some parents who have done a lot of work. I love to fish, and I’m excited for the kids. They’ll be like me one day. They’ll continue to do this when they’re in their 50s like myself.”
Team member and sophomore Nick Bellow tells what is appealing to him about fishing. “It involves going outside and enjoying the scenery on the water,” he said. “It’s just relaxing to be out there, and then it’s pretty fun whenever you hook into a fish.”
Freshman members of the team include Dylan Mckay and Caleb Vidrine. “I started fishing three years ago maybe, and the first time I ever caught a big fish, or any fish really, it just got exciting and went from there,” said Mckay. “I saved my money, and I bought a couple more things for fishing. I just got into it a lot more.”
Vidrine said, “It’s pretty great because I’ve been fishing since I was a kid, and to be on a team and fish and just have fun is pretty awesome.”
The team members will be competing in tournaments that are sanctioned by BASS Nation and BASS Masters. “They compete in three qualifying tournaments, and if they fish all three tournaments, then they go to state,” said Tony Manuel. “If they qualify in state and come out in state, then they go to nationals which would be in a surrounding state.”
The first tournament for the Trojan fishermen is the BASS Masters High School Open Tournament next weekend at Toledo Bend. Some of the members described how this recent Arctic weather affects fishing at Toledo Bend. “You really have to throw deep baits to catch fish because, usually in the winter whenever it’s really cold, the fish don’t really move and don’t really react,” Bellow said. “You have to throw a jig or something, and the fish react to the bait.”
Mckay relayed that he had just gone fishing at Toledo Bend this past weekend. “It was tough,” he said. “The wind was blowing pretty much the whole time, and it was cold. The water never got above 50 degrees. It stayed between 45 and 50, and we really couldn’t find too many fish. We fished a lot of shallow places because the lake is so low right now. It’s five feet below where it should be.”
After battling the conditions at Toledo Bend next weekend, the team will compete in the Spring Qualifier on February 10 on the Calcasieu River in Moss Bluff before competing on Bayou Segnette in March.
Some of the team also described what bringing a fishing championship trophy home would mean for the school. “It’s big to me because if we bring home a trophy, then that would represent our school,” said Mckay. “That’s something we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.”
Echoing Mckay’s sentiments was Vidrine when he said, “It’s something we can carry with us for our whole lives just to say I was on a team whenever we did that and I was a part of that.”
More importantly about bringing home a trophy is what fishing teaches the students about life. As Soileau concluded, “It teaches you to stay calm and patient because you can’t rush anything while you’re fishing. You just have to keep it steady.”