Buck Perry Spoonplugging book

[J Francho]

Actually, it's the only way I know to put a frog popper in the same patch of pads or slop, repeatedly without reeling in, recasting, and edging your bait into place.

[senile1]

23 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Its also a bit self-serving.  "My methods are so good, they banned them!"

In my reading, I've noticed that Buck could be a bit cocky, but then I guess he had reason to be.  

[WRB]

1 hour ago, J Francho said:

16'-17' boats, rods over 8' aren't gonna work with two anglers.  I don't think fly fishing is banned, the rod length limit precludes it.

Trolling is allowed in walleye tournaments.  Almost as many boats in the pro events.

8' rod length maximum came from Dee Thomas using 14' flipping rods, he also fished out of a 15' aluminum boat.  Fenwick made Dee's first 8' flipping rod so he could continue compete in B.A.S.S. events. Getting off topic.

Buck Perry traveled the country promoting his Spoonplugs, I went to a seminar in the early 70's in Santa Monica Fred Hall Show and bought a set of Spoonplugs, don't recall if he was promoting his book back then. Trolling Bombers, Hellbenders or any deep diving lures work better for me. I knew about structure fishing, got my first green box Lawrance flasher in the early 60's long before I heard about Buck Perry, reading his book would have helped back then.

Tom

[Team9nine]

On the trolling ban thing, I believe the primary answer is because when Ray Scott first started and devised the rules for his national B.A.S.S. events, he envisioned a competition where guys who didn't know each other were paired together in boats and competed "mano y mano," cast for cast, one lure each. Each angler was competing against all the other guys, and everyone's weight was an individual score - let the best man win. As such, there was no good way to implement trolling into the game and keep with the spirit of competition and fairness he sought. Since Ray and B.A.S.S. set the rules, most every other bass tourney organization that followed did the same.

If you take note of the professional tours for other species you'll see a difference. For example, the walleye guys (PWT, AIM, etc.) were always paired as a pro and a co-angler in the same boat, and had a shared weight system (work as a team, and the weight for the boat is the weight recorded for both the pro angler and the co-angler). Makes trolling and scoring fair for both partners. Even lower AAA levels like MWC are team events, fish with a "buddy." Similarly, nearly all professional crappie events are "team" events, where the team (both guys) get the same weight for the day. As such, trolling is a perfectly good tactic again, fair for all. Ray set the rules for bass competition, so that's how we play the game.

I think the Perry/Eisenhower thing really happened, but the timing was coincidental given it happening shortly before the formation of B.A.S.S. and their professional tourney circuit.

-T9

Oh, and Ray Scott once held a fly fishing B.A.S.S. tourney  B.A.S.S.' fly rod tournaments preceded a trio of Invitationals in 1975. The events were B.A.S.S. founder Ray Scott's way of promoting fly fishing among the Micropterus crowd. Anglers earned points for the fly rod events that counted toward AOY. About the only rules for these one-day tournaments were that you had to use a conventional fly rod and reel and cast in a conventional fly-fishing manner. Lots of anglers unaccustomed to fly fishing used the long rods to throw small plastic worms and jigs....Ricky Green won one of them, and even Rick Clunn placed high in an event... and it was at a fly fishing conference where Ray first got the "catch and release" idea.

[WRB]

Bass fishing derbies started long before Ray Scott came up with the All American bass tournaments. The problem Scott solved with the blind draw format was cheating that was common back in early derbies. No live bait, no trolling, 1 rod in the water couldn't use multiple rods at the same time and each angler shared running the boat 1/2 the time. 2 anglers fishing together that didn't know each other prevented cheating by caging bass.  I believe trolling was considered as a low skill fishing method, prevented using multiple rods and Scott wanted the best bass anglers to fish his events.

Buck Perry developed lures that could be trolled at different speeds and maintain a specific depth that was a big advantage in deep structured lakes with river channels and ledges. Spoonplugs are a disadvantage casting to targets with heavy aquatic weed beds and docks that shore oriented bass anglers tend to focused on. Perry's understanding why bass located on structure and how he believed they moved along structure elements is what makes him a pioneer in bass fishing, not his lures or trolling methods.

Tom

[J Francho]

50 minutes ago, WRB said:

8' rod length maximum came from Dee Thomas using 14' flipping rods, he also fished out of a 15' aluminum boat.  Fenwick made Dee's first 8' flipping rod so he could continue compete in B.A.S.S. events.

That rings a bell - jigger-poling.  Forgot about that.  Thanks!

[Catt]

1 hour ago, WRB said:

8' rod length maximum came from Dee Thomas using 14' flipping rods, he also fished out of a 15' aluminum boat.  Fenwick made Dee's first 8' flipping rod so he could continue compete in B.A.S.S. events. Getting off topic.

Tom

The issue with Dee Thomas's 14' rods was he had not reel on it!

 

http://bassfishingarchives.com/features/the-birth-of-the-flippin-stik-part-one

[WRB]

Catt thanks for posting the article. Dee says his rods were 12' same length as his boat. I thought the boat and rods were 14' and remember seeing Dee and his boat with the long rods that looked like outrigger poles!

Getting way off topic, Dee's wife Terry passed away a few weeks ago, they were very close.

Tom