Tyler Rivet’s season-opening victory last week on Lake Okeechobee provided many memorable moments, not the least of which was his use of straight-up Cajun slang. True to his laidback style, the affable angler from Raceland, La. casually introduced the Bassmaster audience to the term sac-a-lait en route to describing his path to victory.
We won’t rehash the entire tournament gamer, but this excerpt fairly summarizes the tale of how dinner plans unexpectedly provide the winning tournament strategy:
“I just went sac-a-lait (French for crappie) fishing before the tournament,” Rivet said. “I’m the cook in my travel family, so I went up the Kissimmee River and caught some sac-a-lait. Then I looked to the left on Garmin LiveScope and said ‘That looks like a bass.’”
The French term for the crappie Rivet found keeping company with largemouth bass translates to “bag of milk” — an apt description of the delicate white fillets. Expanding on the largemouth revelation put Rivet on course to his first blue trophy.
Between the Okeechobee event and Day 1 of the Gamakatsu Bassmaster Elite on Lake Seminole, Rivet has dropped a couple more Cajun terms on us.
Choupique: That’s the cajun word for bowfin, the prehistoric-looking predator widely distributed throughout the U.S., but particularly plentiful in Southeastern waters. Some call them grennel, some say dogfish, others go with mudfish; Cajuns call them choupique (pronounced: “choo-pick”).
An adaptation of the Choctaw word shupik, which means “mudfish,” that name proved to apropos this morning when Rivet hooked a chunky fish that thrashed up some serious turbidity while wallowing out of a gap in shallow shoreline grass.
Initially unsure of what he had hooked, Rivet finally mused: “It’s a bass; I thought it was a choupique.”
Rougarou: This one, while truly spine-tingling, was a little more subtle and it really only came up in post-event interviews. When Rivet fished the XCite Baits Sucka Punch creature bait that he helped design, he rigged it with a 3/4-ounce Rougarou tungsten weight.
In fairness, Rougarou Tackle Co., is nothing scary, but its namesake — ooh, well, now that’s a different story.
So, apparently, this mythical creature with a man’s body and a wolf’s head played a somewhat motivational role in Cajun culture. In one version, older folks would admonish misbehaving children with something to the effect of: “You better behave, or the rougarou’s gonna getcha.”
Elsewhere, some believe the rougarou would hunt down and, well, do horrible things to Catholics who did not follow the rules of Lent. (There are, no doubt, several Boudreaux jokes here, but you can look those up on your own time.)
In any case, the rougarou was not to be trifled with. Stuff of nightmares, ya might say; but, again, that’s no reflection on the tungsten weights that helped Rivet win $100,000.
Mexico has its chupacabra, Tibet has its Yeti (not the coolers), South Florida has the Skunk Ape, and Louisiana has the rougarou.
Just good travel advice.
