Keith Lusher 11-year-old Brennan Perilloux lives in the Del Oaks Subdivision in Madisonville. Like most boys his age, Brennan likes to fish. But Brennan’s dad, Cory, says that his son has another quality that the other kid’s don’t have. “Brennan is a good fisherman but I have to say also that the boy is lucky!” his father jokes. To quote the late great John Milton “Luck is the residue of design.” and while the reality of luck has been argued extensively, Brennan likes to think of his luck as simply something that is bound to happen with the frequency of how much he goes fishing.
Brennan arrives with his bike and custom made "fishing wagon" “I love to fish! I think about it all the time!” Brennan says. His father can attest to this. “Everybody around here knows him, he’s always passing by with his wagon and fishing fishing poles, headed down to the water. He even begs us if he can check his catfish lines in the morning before leaving for school,” Cory says. At only 11, Brennan has chalked up quite an extensive scorecard of big fish. “In the last 2 years he’s probably caught 10 bass over 4 lbs. and 2 over 5 lbs.” The proud father says. But it wasn’t until this past weekend that Brennan caught his biggest bass to date. The day started out like any other Saturday. Brennan and Cory headed to the neighborhood boat launch just down the street from their house. “It’s just a small inlet that leads to the Tchefuncte River,” Cory says. The father and son began fishing from the bank when Cory caught a small bass on his spinning reel with a Texas-rigged Junebug colored worm. Only a few casts later he caught another. Brennan decided that he wanted to use the Junebug worm so Cory handed the worm-rigged pole over to him and began walking back to his truck to get another fishing pole. “I figured it would be easier to just let him use that one and go grab another pole in the truck,” Cory says. While en route to get another fishing pole from his truck, Cory heard his son screaming that he had a big one. Before he reached the truck, he ran back to Brennan and saw the fish jump and head for the grass.
Brennan shows off his 7 lb. 4 oz. lunker bass “I took the pole from him so I could try and get the fish out of the lilies. It didn’t have much fight to be honest so I guided it over to where Brennan was,” he says. Brennan was hunched over waiting to grab the bass and when the fish got close enough to reach, the youngster grabbed it with one hand. “He started to come up with it but it shook and he dropped it in the water,” Cory says. luckily the bass didn’t have much fight left in it and Cory brought it closer to Brennan once more. “I reached down and grabbed it with two hands this time!” exclaims Brennan. The 11-year-old says he had just caught his biggest bass he had ever caught in his “life,” - a 7 lb. 4 oz. lunker! Cory says he debated on whether or not to throw the fish back. “I was a little torn between throwing it back and keeping it to mount but I thought to myself ‘he may never catch another one this big again’ - so I decided to have it mounted for him,” the proud father says. For now, the 7 lb. fish is enough to satisfy Brennan’s hunger to catch big fish but with school out for the summer the Tchefuncte Middle School student says there’s lot’s more fishing to be done and will undoubtedly be aiming higher. While fishing dominates Brennan’s world, the youngster also has the hindsight to realize his father is the reason he loves fishing so much. “I like fishing, but really, I like everything that my dad does so I just want to do the things that he likes to do,” he says.
