welcomed home Swamp People' ~ LAWOK LEPAS

welcomed home Swamp People'

HOUMA — Fame hasn't changed Trapper Joe or Trigger Tommy, the father-stepson duo said Saturday while signing autographs at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center.

People are beginning to recognize the two, who appear on the History Channel's reality show “Swamp People.” But they still wear their white shrimp boots and go alligator hunting and fishing like they always have.

Originally from Dularge, Joe LaFont and his stepson, Tommy Chauvin, met with fans and old friends Saturday at the Southern Louisiana Boat, Sport and RV Show in Houma.

“It's the same day to day. It's all the same for us. We're not changing nothing,” said LaFont, who was wearing his signature blue button-down shirt, jeans and white rubber boots.

In addition to scrawling their names on pictures from the show, the two also penned their names inside the mouths of small alligator heads at their booth.

The show follows multiple families and people in the swamps of south Louisiana and was instantly embraced by the nation as well as local viewers, who said Saturday it accurately depicts their heritage.

“It did good for the South,” LaFont said. “It recognized what we do over here.”

Rafe Sauce, a 43-year-old from Morgan City, said the show gets to the state's roots.

“This is what built Louisiana — trapping and fishing,” Sauce said, adding the oil-and-gas industry to the list.

A former commercial fisherman who now mostly catches wild crawfish, he said he appreciates LaFont and Chauvin's down-to-earth attitudes. It rings true, Sauce said, when the two talk about harvesting as much as possible before going on to their next job.

“Catch it while it's here,” Sauce said. “Get what you can cause it don't last.”

LaFont and Chauvin, who live in Belle Chasse, will also appear in the second season of “Swamp People” that airs in early summer. The two wouldn't reveal much about what's in store next season, but LaFont said there's 16, instead of 10, episodes and they catch a lot of big alligators and run into some bad weather. LaFont said the History Channel contacted him to be on the show because they needed hunters with enough alligator tags to sustain 15 days of filming. One of their youngest fans, 4-year-old Kooper Worley of Cut Off, said he likes the pair because “Tommy says ‘Shake and bake.'” The words are his catchphrase, much like “Choot'em” is the signature line from fellow cast member Troy Landry of Pierre Part.

“Shake and bake, baby, a little salt and pepper with a dash of cayenne,” Chauvin said in an interview with The Courier.

The young Worley has men in his family who've worked in alligator farming and skinning, said his mother, Sonya Worley, 38, of Cut Off. When asked if he wants to grow up to be an alligator hunter, Kooper Worley, wearing a green T-shirt with an alligator that match his green eyes, smiled and nodded his head before burying his face into his mother's leg.

“We DVR ‘Swamp People,'” his mom said, looking down at him. “And every time he comes back from daycare, we watch ‘Swamp People.'”

Mark Tabor, a 13-year-old from Montegut, proudly showed his autographed picture. He's starting to hunt and fish, his parents said, and enjoys everything about the show.

At Montegut Middle School, the teenager said he earned honorable mention at a social studies fair for his project about “Swamp People.”

“This is reality. This is more or less who we are,” said his father, 39-year-old Corey Tabor.

The family said they also like Lafont and Chauvin's father-son dynamic. They fight about whether to go fishing or hunting throughout many episodes, but always work things out.

“Every family gets in arguments,” Corey Tabor said. “They bite the bullet and move on.”

The boat and RV show continues from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center, 346 Civic Center Blvd., Houma.