Perkins and Palmer have been showing off their skills on the LSU Fishing Team
Two Louisiana State University students are hitting the books in search of degrees and wetting a line in search of bass.
Devan Perkins, a junior, and Kade Palmer, a sophomore, immerse themselves in their studies, part-time jobs and, when the whistle blows, so to speak, fishing in-state and out-of-state bass tournaments with the LSU Fishing Team.
After six years of bass tournaments, the first two years with Junior Southwest Bassmasters, Perkins had priorities regarding education and fishing before entering LSU.
“I didn’t fish my freshman year,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how college would be. I wanted to feel it out first. I didn’t want to get in over my head. After my freshman year, I felt comfortable enough I’d have time to focus on school and still fish.”
At LSU, the 21-year-old Perkins has teamed with Palmer, who fished four years at Walker High School. Unlike Perkins, Palmer didn’t fish competitively before high school but took up the sport after shattering the growth plate in his ankle. He got his hands on “a bunch of rods” his dad had, then started fishing a pond in their yard.
Perkins and Palmer crossed paths in high school as a senior and junior during a Louisiana High School Bass Nation tournament at Doiron’s Landing in Stephensville. Palmer and Evan Burris were leading with a few teams yet to weigh. Then Perkins and Ty Ross dropped a heavier bag on the digital scale.
“We had 16 pounds,” Palmer said. “Normally, 16 wins out there. He had 18 something.”
“He (Palmer) was leading the whole way,” Perkins said. “I was one of the last boats to weigh in and bumped him out of first. He messed with me for a while about it. I messed with him back about it.”
Fishing the MLF championship
Palmer and Perkins both fished two high school national championships on their respective high school teams.
As LSU tournament partners, they qualified for the Major League Fishing national championship together in April.
“We just fished in the MLF championship and the first day had 16 something (16-9),” Perkins said, adding the bite fell off on Day 2. “It really was good to have the opportunity to compete on that level. One hundred and thirty-six teams out of 900 teams that fished (collegiately nationwide) to qualify last year.”
That tournament was at Wheeler Lake in Alabama, a lake Perkins had a difficult time comparing to anywhere in Louisiana.
“I’ll say this, the main river, actually, they were pulling so much water (creating current) it fished like the Red River. We caught on main river points. I’ve caught fish like that,” Perkins said about trips on Red River.
“Those Tennessee River lakes. They are something different,” he said. “They are good lakes but it’s hard to compare them to stuff around here.”
His favorite Louisiana lake is False River, the lake he grew up catchin’ bass. While working at a local Chick-fil-A after graduating from Denham Springs High School, Perkins fished the oxbow lake three or four days a week before going to work.
To this day he believes it’s the best place to fish during the summer “if you know where to go and what to do.” Late May and June, he said, offer bassin’ opportunities if there’s some sort of shad spawn.
“If you get there when it’s happening, where it’s happening, you’re going to catch fish. The biggest thing is finding a really hard structure,” he said, noting seawalls are prime targets.
Or, he said, “Look under a dock and if it looks like it’s raining underneath it, fish there.”
That’s typically when baitfish spawn on rocks, where smaller crankbaits and smaller spinnerbaits trigger bites, he said.
Success as a team
Palmer, 20, agreed their recent national tournament was a memorable experience collegiately. He ranks the team’s other highlights of the 2024-25 season as a 4th-place finish at Toledo Bend and a 9th in another tournament at Lake Concordia.
Palmer’s favorite lake in-state is Toledo Bend, which won him over with that 4th-place finish in the first half of this season.
“I didn’t really like it till last year at our college tournament,” he said, advising others to fish deep from post-spawn into the summer with citrus shad Strike King KVD 10xD crankbaits and Carolina-rigged soft plastics armed with a red bug Zoom Brush Hog.
The LSU team’s next outing was scheduled to be a BASS event at Chickamauga Lake near Dayton, Tenn., May 30-31. Because of boat trouble plaguing their respective boats they were unable to fish the Bassmaster College Series tournament April 30-May 1 at Buggs Island in Virginia.
Palmer, an electrical engineering major who also works at Panda Express and details cars at Deep South Detailing, and Perkins, a construction management major and intern at Excel Contractor, have different outlooks on bass fishing after college.
“I really don’t plan on making a career out of bass fishing,” Perkins said. “All the power to guys fishing (Opens) but that’s just not me. I may fish some of the B.A.S.S. Nation tournaments.”
Palmer said he’s definitely not going to quit fishing.
“I’ll probably fish either the Toyota Series or maybe some Opens to keep the fun going,” he said.
