Angler’s passion is catch and release

By Raymond Partsch III
Ville Platte Gazette
VILLE PLATTE — Bryce Fontenot doesn’t keep what he catches.
The 44-year-old fisherman spends nearly every waking moment that he can on the water with a rod and reel in his hand, preferably at his favorite fishing hole Chicot Lake. Bryce eats, sleeps, and even dreams about fishing but yet when it comes to keeping a prized 10 or 11-pound bass, Bryce enjoys the accomplishment for a brief moment but ultimately opts to throw it back in the lake.
“I will not keep a fish,” Bryce said. “Especially for a fish that is over three or four pounds. The 11-pounder I caught was the hardest to let go because that was the largest one I have ever caught in my life but I could not take it out of this lake.”
“People can’t believe that he releases everything he catches,” Bryce’s wife Kim said. “They always say ‘the freezer back home must be full of fish.’ I laugh and then tell them ‘no.’”
Bryce’s passion for angling took hold at a very early age.
Even though Bryce’s family took part in hunting and fishing, the Fontenots didn’t spend every waking moment out in a duck blind or casting a line around the banks of a lake.
The family was in the music business as Bryce’s father and mother worked at Floyd’s Record Shop, the famed record store in Ville Platte that was the spot for locals, and out-of-towners to come and pick up the latest records from Swamp Pop artists such as Warren Storm and Johnnie Allan or Zydeco performers like Beau Jocque and the Hi-Rollers.
In addition, Bryce’s father Cecil also spent decades making handmade Cajun accordions.
Even though it would seem natural that Bryce would be drawn to the sounds that could be heard inside the store, Bryce found his solace in the quietness of the lake.
“It was his passion,” said Cecil, who spent his teen years and early 20’s fishing at local spots such as Miller’s Lake and Cazan Lake. “Bryce was born to fish. I started taking him bream fishing when he was four. By the time he was five or six he wouldn’t even fish with me anymore. He was like if you dropped a baby duck in the water. He was just a natural.”
“My daddy took me bream fishing,” Bryce said. “Every now and then we would mess up and hook a bass. When that happened I just fell in love with bass fishing. I believe in the peace of mind of fishing. This is my getaway from life.”
Bryce’s passion for bass fishing in particular would take off at the age of 10, when he would begin to ride his mini-bike to Rusty’s Tackle Mart in Ville Platte. The owner Rusty Coldiron saw how interested the youngster was in learning how to snag bass, that he decided to take him underneath his wing and show him the ropes of fishing for bass at Chicot Lake.
“He was in there all the time buying baits,” Cecil said. “He would hear all their tall tales of fishing. They kind of saw him as their grandson or nephew.”
“He was always ready to go fishing and he loved it,” Coldiron said. “He paid attention to what I taught him. He was easy to teach because he had so much enthusiasm. He never refused a fishing trip.”
While attending Sacred Heart School, Bryce would work at Floyd’s but all of his money he made would go right back into his passion.
That passion never waned for Bryce as he grew up, graduated from high school and then began a seven-year-career in law enforcement, working for both the Ville Platte Police Department and then the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office, the latter as a detective.
Bryce, who left law enforcement to work shift work as an operator for Cleco Corporation to provide better for his family, did for a time give up fishing, including even selling off his boat.
So what could keep Bryce off the water? Spending time with his family.
“I had a daughter who was playing travel ball so every weekend we were going to games,” Bryce said. “So I quit fishing for approximately 10 years.”
Then when his daughter Ragen gave up travel ball, Bryce quickly bought another boat and was back on the lake. Bryce currently works five on and then five off, then two on and two off, and when he is off work he can be found casting a line on the lake.
“That five off I live in the lake every chance I get,” Bryce said. “I got off this morning at 7 o’clock. I slept until 11 o’clock and I am out here fishing. And I will be out here again tomorrow.”
“I always tell people that I taught him everything he knew but that’s not true,” Coldiron said. “He knows a lot more than I do now. He has never lost the passion for fishing.”
Bryce has caught plenty of prize-worthy bass in Chicot over the years, with six weighing over 9 pounds and four over 10 pounds and his personal record for fish in a day is 35.
For Bryce, who only takes a Styrofoam cup and a Dr. Pepper and maybe a water with him for the day of fishing, there is no other spot in the world that he would rather fish than Chicot Lake.
“In the 90’s they drained the lake and then stocked it with Florida Bass,” Bryce said. “I caught my first bass over 10 pounds back then and once I got that big bite I was hooked on the place. I have fished over 60 hours in here and haven’t gotten a single bite,” Bryce added. “Then come back the next day and catch 22 and catch a fish that is eight or nine pounds. It is a humbling lake. You have to really like to fish to like fishing in this lake.”
The biggest catch of his life happened at Chicot last year when Bryce reeled in a 11.10-pound bass.
“At noon that day I flipped a jig next to a cypress tree and I saw the line tick and it take off,” Bryce said. “The fish were not spawning at that time and the water was muddy and I couldn’t see. Well I flipped back in and I got another tick and the line took off again. So that told me that the fish was probably on the nest and she was moving the line off that nest, so I pitched a suspended crank bait past the tree and reeled it and stopped it in front of the tree and she took it and I ended up catching her.”
When Bryce is not out on the water, he is trying to get Evangeline Parish high schools to field fishing teams, and hopefully down the road have the LHSAA recognize his passion as an official sanctioned sport.
“We didn’t have that option when I was a kid,” Bryce said. “I was a big kid and they wanted me to play football but I had no passion for football. I was given an ultimatum once to either go fishing or quit the baseball team. That was no choice for me I turned in my uniform and I went fishing. I know there are a lot of kids today that feel that same way. I want to teach them to love mother nature but respect it. I want these kids to just enjoy what God gave us.”
That’s also why Bryce is so adamant about being a catch-and-release fisherman.
“It’s not so much that I love fishing as it is that I love finding the fish,” Bryce said. “If you take out those five or six-pound bass you will never replenish that in a lake like this that is fished as much as it is. I just believe that if we keep the genes in this lake it will benefit our kids and grand kids. I love this place.”