The Coach Paille Challenge
Keith Lusher 02.20.24
One of the great things about being an outdoor journalist is I’m able to meet interesting people through my work. This past week, I had the pleasure of climbing on board with a gentleman who knows a lot about bass fishing the local waters here in South Louisiana. His name is Paul Paille (pronounced “pie”… it’s French) and he’s somewhat of a celebrity in the area being that he has been coaching High School sports since he was 22 years old. Paille is currently an assistant Football Coach and Head Golf Coach for Mandeville High School in St. Tammany Parish. As I jumped in his 20-foot razor bass boat this was made clear as two boats passed us and hollered “Coach Paille… Coach Paille.”
After getting a few tips from “Coach”, we began to talk about his ability to catch big bass. Paille always seems to be able to bring in the big fish which is one of his strengths when fishing the local bass tournament scene. After conversing with him for about an hour, it was obvious that Paille was custom-made for fishing bass tournaments through years of competitive coaching. “Right from the start I loved the art and science of bass fishing. Trying to solve the daily and even hourly Bass puzzle amazes me,” Paille said. As the day progressed I noticed he started to fish harder and with a purpose. Paille was dead set on catching a big bass so that we could take pictures, however, I’m not so sure it there wasn’t something else pushing him. As we talked more, Paille started telling me about his “Coach Paille Challenges.” These are daily challenges he creates that provide the stress and anxiety he experiences during tournaments. “When I started fishing bass tournaments I wasn’t good enough to consistently win. So the coach in me developed a practice plan to improve,” Paille said.
He began to explain to me how he orchestrates the challenges. “I video myself pre-dawn stating a challenge on video. I set a certain weight that I have to total with five fish. Then I have to catch the weight or I have to pay by doing something unpleasurable like eating liver…..Yuk,” Paille said. This made a lot of sense to me and I shook my head in agreement with the lifelong Coach.
Paille then told me about a challenge that he recently issued to himself. “I posted the challenge on social media and my friends follow online as the challenge progresses. I had to catch a five-fish stringer that weighed ten pounds, or I would have to eat a nutria (giant swamp rat),” he said. Paille fished hard all day catching numerous quality fish, but missed his target by one ounce. “I just couldn’t upgrade weight so I had to live up to the challenge,” he said.
The next day Paille made a trip to the river and was able to wrap up a nutria on the end of a cast and reel it in. After preparing it he videod himself eating the fried rat and sent it to all his friends to prove that he completed the challenge. “That’s what’s so motivating about the challenges…I know I have to fulfill them if I don’t hit my goal,” he said. Paille glanced at me and smirked, “I’m a middle child of eight.”
As we laughed together, Coach Paille manned the trolling motor as he tossed a jig that he made himself. “I can’t ever find exactly what I want at the stores so I just make them myself,” he said. When Paille is hunting big bass he enlarges the profile of the jig by adding a Magnum trick worm to the hook. Then it’s all about location. “Bass need food and oxygen so I like to find junctions where a smaller tributary is connected to the main river,” he said. In February, water conditions are fluctuating because of the weekly cold fronts that pass through dumping several inches of rain on South Louisiana.
“If you find these junctions, look at the water that is coming into the main river,” he said. Paille pointed out a shoreline in the main river and said, “Do you see that shoreline? Look at the clean water that is flowing along it. Those fish are going to be on that shoreline because that’s where they can feed along that mixing line. I try to target stickouts (trees that stick out into to river) You can quickly glance down the river and notice banks with no lillies. Those are the deeper banks and are phenomenal for catching large bass,” Paille said.
Paille continued to cast franticly as the sun went down and then froze. He slowly turned the handle tightening up the slack in his line. He bent over and BAM! Coach swung his rod back and connected with what he was looking for all day. “There he is,” he said. Paille uses braided mainline with a 17-pound fluorocarbon leader so the fight didn’t last long. He muscled a 5.2-pound bass near the boat and lipped it. After raising the fish up into the air he stood up, removed the hook from its mouth, and said, “Mission accomplished!” On the boat ride back I asked Coach what the penalty for not meeting his challenge was. He just shook his head and said, “You don’t want to know!”
