Buck Perry Began The Modern Era Of Fishing

In the lexicon of modern fishing history, there exists but a few names that indelibly changed the way we approach the science and sport of fishing. Different branches of the fishing tree have their icons – Ray Scott owns the tournament bass-fishing limb, for example. But at the root of it all there lies Elwood "Buck" Perry and Carl Lowrance.

Buck Perry, beyond any imaginable argument, is the father of structure fishing. His theories, first set

forth in the mid-1950s, changed the way every serious angler approached the underwater world. Those theories, coupled with the advent of Carl Lowrance's "Little Green Box" in 1959, ushered in the modern era of fishing, from which all current knowledge stems.

After a period of declining health, Buck Perry died at his residence in Taylorsville, N.C. on August 12 at the age of 90. On that day, the fishing world lost one of its greatest minds.

The Beginnings

Perry was born July 10, 1915 in Hickory, N.C. and attended Hickory High School, where he was a member of the state-champion football teams of 1929 and 1930.

He received a BS in physics-mathematics from Lenoir Rhyne College. He served his country during WWII as a member of the Army Transportation Corps, and spent the latter part of the war on special assignment as a Lt. Colonel in the European Theater.

After the war, he returned to Hickory to work with his father and brother in the Perry Armature Company until interests in sales, land development, oil exploration, manufacturing, travel and writing dissolved this association. That's when his thirst for fishing development began to flourish.

Plug Solution

In an era when most of his southern brethren ignored deep water and concentrated on the bank, Perry grew to believe that most fish lived deep, and made only occasional forays to shallow water.

Furthermore, he felt the bass did not move in a random fashion, but instead followed predictable routes between deep and shallow water. In order to accurately ply the different depths, he invented the Spoonplug in 1946.

He and his wife, Marjorie, manufactured the lures in an apartment. Spoonplugs, which are still sold today, were literally a spoon-plug combination that came in different models and dove to different, predictable depths. Coupled with no-stretch line, the Spoonplug was the first tool deigned to accurately work offshore structure.

He spent the next 11 years attempting to promote his Spoonplugs, and system, throughout the South. Business was slow, but everything changed when he brought the Spoonplugs north.

The Chicago Revolution

It was an airplane pilot named Don Nichols who first convinced Perry to promote his Spoonplugs in Chicago. Perry and outdoor writer Tom McNally fished Lake Marie, which was reportedly fished out, and put a hurt on the fish. Word spread quickly and he began promotions throughout the upper Midwest.

Legendary angler Spence Petros remembers. "Between Buck Perry and Carl Lowrance, they started the modern era of fishing," he said. "Buck was trying to put people on the right track before that. He did promotions all through the South, but it didn't do much good until he started coming up north. He did a promotion in Chicago in 1957, at the Chain of Lakes, and caught something like 400 bass out of one pool.

"He got Tom McNally out there, and they had two 10-fish limits which they held up for the newspaper. After that, there were lines around the block. I was in the line. A lot of other people were too."

Petros said it all changed after that. "They thought it was fished out. People were just fishing weedlines, and then the lake got dirtier with pollution. Buck came and went out on structure, where the bass live.

"Without Buck, we would be behind," he added. "The sad part is, even the early bass guys were pretty clueless in the beginning. But the guys who really did good, they got wind of this stuff, and they understood it. That's why they had a big jump on the other guys."

Would Tournaments Exist?

Ron Lindner, another angling pioneer, lopped equal praise and credit on Perry. "First of all, and this is a fact, tournament fishing as we know it today could not have happened if Buck Perry did not explain his concept of structure fishing, which is that fish relate to a break in an otherwise regular terrain. Only 20% of the water contains any fish."

And as Linder told it, structure fishing did occur before the Carl Lowrance developed the Box, but is was a heck of a lot tougher. "People needed a machine or some way of doing this," he said. "Buck tried to do it before the advent of the Green Box, and I did this, and believe me, it was an arduous task. You would do it by trolling, and dragging out long lines. By the way, (Perry) had no-stretch line before anybody else.

"But you'd feel bottom – soft to hard – then throw out little markers to track this thing. When Carl Lowrance produced the Green Box, it changed everything. Buck Perry's concept of structure fishing, and his other views, combined with Lowrance, who had the tool do it, is the basis of the modern angling revolution.

"Everything we do today is just an extension of this," he noted. "Without these two items there would have been no revolution."

Linder added two other important Perry contributions. "He was the first to postulate the cold-front theory. He gave anglers an excuse to not catch fish in cold fronts. Buck also produced another tool – that the main controls are depth and speed.

"Everything else – action, sound, scent, color, shape, texture – are triggers. While they add, or subtract, to a lure's viability, they still have to be used in the framework of depth and speed. You could have all those things right, but if you're not at the right depth or speed, you won't have fish.

"The entire industry owes this man a debt of gratitude," he added. "Buck probably never, ever got the full credit that he deserves. You remove him plus Carl Lowrance, and you don't have what we have today. You have to call Buck's contribution – that fish relate to structure – one of the cornerstones of modern angling."

Continuing Influence

Perry published Spoonplugging: Your Guide to Lunker Catches in 1973 – considered one of the most influential fishing books ever written. He also published a nine-volume Home Study Series in 1981 and his bi-monthly newsletter, Buck Perry's The National Spoonplugger, is still published today. Gary Klein is one of the many anglers who read Spoonplugging.

"Buck Perry was without a doubt not only an influence on me, but obviously an influence on the entire sport," he said. "And I read the book, and have caught many, many bass on Spoonplugs, especially in northern California. What he did is he basically taught anglers how to look into the environment of the fish. He gave us a better understanding of how fish use offshore cover. In California, that was just a huge, huge asset."

In fact, Klein said Perry wowed the Clear Lake, Calif. crowd just like he did years before in Chicago. "What really impressed me was his travels. He hammered them on Clear Lake trolling a Spoonplug. Lots of lakes around the country – Buck Perry was there.

"Talking about lure presentation – I seriously think all anglers should read some of his writing. I think Buck Perry was kind of like Einstein. He was way, way ahead of his time."

Notable

> For more on Buck Perry, including information on Spoonplugs, click here to visit BuckPerry.com .

> Terry O'Malley was a close friend of Perry's and still teaches Spoonplugging. His home water is Lake Wylie, S.C. – site of the 2004 Bassmaster Classic. Petros had this to say about the Wylie Classic: "Guys caught them shallow, but Terry O'Malley was catching 75 bass a day on underwater humps there on Spoonplugs. Nobody did that."

> Lindner first met Perry during the famous Chain of Lakes demonstration in 1957. "I picked the stuff up in 1955," he said. "I don't know how much before that he had actually written the stuff down, but it was already in printed form in 1955."