It’s LSU – Bama week, and we can’t let it pass without our fifth annual version of the fish fight between the two SEC West powerhouses.



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There’s a boatload of reasons coaching LSU means a lot to Louisiana’s own Ed Orgeron. Games, players, recruiting, atmosphere, and now a biggie — being captain of the LSU boat in the annual LSU–Alabama pre-game fishing tournament. Even the College GameFish Day crew is here!

“Yaw, Yaw, Yaw! C’est l’heure d’aller à la pêche!” the Cajun coach yells (It’s time to go fishing). He tells the gathering media at the boat dock that he’s shaking things up for this LSU home event. “We gonna blindside them, and this ain’t no movie,” he bellows. “We are going to de bayou. We are going to fish de Bayou Lafourche out of pirogues (pee-rows),” says Coach O. “We got a purple and a gold pirogue for me and my camarade, Leonard Fournette, and a red and a gray pirogue for Nick Saban and his camarade, Cam Robinson. They just need to check under the seat on dat one and make sure there aren’t any stolen pistolets. Welcome home, garçon’”

The rules are simple. You can keep any kind of fish you catch for the weighin. Except REDfish. During football season, REDfish are trash fish.

“Bienvenue dans mon monde de pêche”, Coach O yells at a bewildered T-Nick.

Saban is already livid ( So what’s new?). Somebody has scratched “Red Beaulieu” on the side of his little red boat. Beaulieu is the evil, cheating coach in the movie “Waterboy”. Saban also can’t understand what O is saying, so he turns to Robinson, who has a translator app on his phone. “He said ‘Welcome to my fishing world’”, Robinson answers.

“If I knew we were fishing in these little coonass boats, I wouldn’t have brought your big self, Cam Robinson!” Saban wails. “And now they won’t even let Lane Kiffin up front in my boat to paddle. Where can I put my Coke bottle? I can’t be photographed without my million dollar Coke bottle. And where’s my hairbrush?”

Time to start.

“Paddle yoseff, T-Nick,” O yells. “Don’t worry, Yankee man. It’s not deep. See, the alligators are not even all the way under the water.” One of the spectators, Bobby Boucher, yells from the bank, “Careful there Cam Robinson. My mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush.” A distant fan yells “row Tide”…

Fournette is already busy, landing seven nice speckled trout on seven straight casts.

“Coach O, try one of these BUGA baits, they’re tearing them up,” No. 7 says. Coach O does, then they switch baits. “Let’s try les chevrette for bait and even catch more,” says Leonard.”

“What are they using? What are they using? Hurry up Cam. What’s a les chevrette ?” Saban cries out.

“It means shrimp,” Robinson says back. “Well, give me some shrimp #74!” T-Nick screams back.

“Uh oh, coach. I didn’t know the shrimp were bait. I ate them all,” Robinson said. You know shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That’s about it.”

“STOP!” shrieks T-Nick. “Focus on the process.” Cameron says, “Coach, It’s hot out here on the bayou. I wish I could have fished in some air conditioning?”

Coach O has LSU’s team scoring fish at a fast clip and Bama is still searching through for bait. Then Saban freezes in fear. A dolphin swims right up beside his little red boat. Everybody knows Saban can’t handle dolphins. Then, as if he needed another distraction, Saban notices that Vicki Vallencourt has her eye on him and is paddling his way in her own pirogue. “Hi coach,” says the bayou beauty. “You know I just love little short rich men with pretty hair.” Saban isn’t interested, but Kiffin swims out and asks for her phone number.

About that time, Founette rams Saban’s pirogue and then Robinson’s, throwing them both into the swamp water. It was Turnover Wednesday, you know. Saban scrambles looking for a hair brush.

“Yaw yaw yaw…just what we needed, a couple turnovers,” says Coach O, landing his last fish to make it a daily limit of speckled trout.

Robinson finally hooks into a big flat fish, but doesn’t know what it is. “Oh, that’s an Alabama fish,” Fournette says. “It’s what you are going to do Saturday — Flounder.”

Finally one of the few remaining Rammer Jammer fans steps forward and offers some encouragement to T-Nick. “Coach, I think it’s your destiny. I’m pretty tired now. I think I’ll go home,” says former Bama letterman Forrest Gump.

Coach O closes it out. “We shortened our casts, spent more time studying the opponent and we’ve done what we came to do,” he says. “C’mon Leonard. Game Over. Let’s go get these cleaned up and feed the team a fine pre-game meal of fried speckled trout filets and maybe even some spicy cajun Yaw Yaw Yaw fishbaws! Maybe we can stop by McDonald’s and get some Bama grads working there to fix us a big, big box of Mcfries. Hey, T-Nick….see you some more too also Saturday, I garantie.”

Aaaaiiiiieeeeeeee!!!

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Note: to read previous about fishing tourneys, just go to the search bar on this page and just type in “LSU and Alabama”