Buck Perry Home Study Program?

[B@ssCrzy]

First time posting here so hope I do this right. In reading some of the posts on here Buck Perry's name has been brought up in regards to being the best source of information on learning to read structure. Has anyone ordered his home study course. I looked for his video series but it is out of production. So it seems the next best thing is this course. It looks pretty interesting. I just ordered it on his homepage and I hope I did not waste my money.

[J Francho]

You didn't. Good stuff in there.

[RoLo]

Welcome to the forum

I’ve read Buck Perry's book entitled “Spoonplugging”, and read all the articles he wrote

for Fishing Facts magazine and In-Fisherman magazine (in real-time).

Without a doubt, Buck was a free-thinker who incepted many new angling concepts.

Like Jason Lucas before him, Buck Perry was a pioneer of several innovative

angling theories. I should point out however that several of Buck Perry's

major theories have since been disproven by more than one radio-tracking study.

In any case, his basic fishing concepts are instructive, and though you might

have to read between the lines, his writings are worth your time

Roger

[Crestliner2008]

More than worth your time. You will be way ahead of the game if you study his writings. Ignore the supposed scientific data to the contrary. No one knows more about structure than Perry.

[Grey Wolf]

Money well spent.

[B@ssCrzy]

Good. Sounds like I am getting something that will be helpful in getting me closer to staying on the fish. I appreciate everyone's replies. Thanks a bunch.

RoLo, I would be interested in hearing some of the theories that you alluded to that have been disproven and are there books, links, articles, etc that you would suggest reading that have this info in them?

[RoLo]

RoLo, I would be interested in hearing some of the theories that you alluded to that have been disproven

First off, I’m confident that you’ll enjoy Perry’s course, because all education is money well spent.

The best approach is to read everything you can, and then form all your own opinions.

Like any sport, it's always fun to place someone on a pedestal, but can also be dangerous

when it interferes with free-thinking.

STRUCTURE

Over the years I’ve engrossed the writings of most of the angling greats such as Jason Lucas,

Homer Circle, Buck Perry, Bill Binkleman, Al Lindner, Doug Stange, Larry Dahlberg,

right up to Kevin VanDam. Without exception, each and every one of these guys

(before and after Perry) focused their game on Bottom Contour, Weedy Cover, Woody Cover,

Rocky Cover, Bottom Breaks, Thermal Breaks and Clarity Breaks. Perry reinvented

the word “Structure” as it might apply to the angling world; a looser definition as it were.

Today, the word “structure” has become a catchall hidey-hole with little specificity.

Although the word itself has been mired in mystery, structure fishing is easy

and finding structure isn't much harder than finding your house. Among its many definitions,

the strongest sense of the term “structure” (first listed) "Something built or erected by man”.

That raised another red flag for me. Buck spent the lion’s share of his time fishing

manmade impoundments, whereas I spend most of my time on natural lakes,

Natural lakes are festooned with weedy cover and bottom contour, but you'd be hard put

to find any sunken roadbed, submerged barn, culvert or bridge ('Structure' in the truest sense)

DAILY MIGRATION THEORY

I read Perry’s stuff in real-time, so anything I quote refers to his “original” writings

before any editing or massaging. In the 1960s, Perry spoke of a so-called “sanctuary”

in 30 to 35 feet of water where bass spent most of their time. He suggested

that once or twice every day, bass would “migrate” from their deepwater sanctuary

onto a food-shelf in 8 to 10 ft of water or less.

Since that time however, there have been numerous radio-tracking studies.

Telemetry research is an expensive high-tech proposition with no motive for biased results.

I have yet to read or hear about a single telemetry study suggesting any form of "daily shuttle"

between deepwater and shallow water. On the contrary. radio-tracking results

only reaffirm the notion that largemouth bass are basically sedentary homebodies,

that make only seasonal adjustments. Strangely, most radio-tracking studies do encounter

a handful of transient oddballs. A few bass will embark on an inexplicable journey, in some cases,

crossing the entire lake. Noteworthy is the fact that in spite of changing water depths,

these isolated nomads moved laterally without changing their depth (distance below surface).

This is not surprising though, when we consider the constraints imposed by the 'oxycline',

the 'thermocline', and closer to home, the bass's 'swim bladder', which impedes rapid depth change.

Roger

[CWB]

I recall some time ago in my youth (I won't date myself) reading that Buck came up to my neck of the woods and spent a week fishing the Fox Chain O' Lakes. At the time, the lakes were supposedly fished out. Undoubtedly the bank beaters were having trouble catching anything worth talking about. Buck caught stringers of huge bass and pike and people were amazed.

These are natural lakes and I'm sure he was spending most of his time trolling the weedlines. My biggest muskie to date came trolling a spoonplug in 17 feet of water off the deep weedline of a bowl shaped natural lake. If I recall, he put more emphasis on fishing and eliminating water until you find fish. On lakes where the weeds stop growing at 15 feet, that's where you start.

I also recalled the Lindner boys fishing the same bodies of water in their "barnstorming" days and opening everyones eyes to not only the amazing bass but walleye potential of these waters. I remember actually speaking to Buck on the phone some years ago and I asked him why he put such flimsy hooks on such great baits. His reply was "if you're fishing these in the correct spots, you're going to get hung up alot and with these hooks you can pull and straighten them out". Not sure what he based the deep to shallow migration theory on. Maybe that he hit a couple of shallow feeding periods in the day but had steadier success in deep water. We'll never know. anyway, read the books. You won't be disappointed.