A few months ago I would have said anyone who claims he can always catch bass was either crazy or just bragging, but I’ll listen politely now. It may be true.
My new faith in infallible bass fishermen is the result of an invitation to fish with George Hary at a lake in central Florida. His letter reached me just when I was planning a fishing trip to Arkansas, Alabama, and points south, but the mere convenience of the trip didn’t influence me. Neither did George’s technicolor description of the place. I was used to the glowing terms of resort advertising. The thing that sold me was the blunt statement that George absolutely guaranteed me bass each and every day I fished. If I didn’t catch them, my stay there was free.
I finally arrived at the lake along with a northeaster that had plagued us for 100 miles or more. The wind was even worse the following two days. It kept us off the lake altogether. There was still only a slight lull on the third day, but George was impatient to put his boat on the board, so we went fishing.
My bass tackle, he claimed, was all wrong for the method he was going to show me. He insisted I use a rod that made me feel like Tom Thumb. It was a glass job cut down to about three feet in length, fitted with a baitcasting reel that held monofilament line of about 20-pound test. The lure was an odd-shaped nickel spoon about 2 by 2 inches long, fastened to the line with a tiny snap.
With our poles ready in the boat, George opened up the motor as if to make a fast run to some distant hot spot, but I was surprised to see that he was letting his line out as he steered. He motioned for me to let mine out, too.
“Feel your spoon wiggle?” he yelled. I nodded. “Good,” he came back. “Jerk your rod hard if you get a weed.” Before we had gone another 50 ft., George gave his rod a terrific jerk. At the same time I struck weeds. “Jerk it loose,” he commanded. Not knowing what else to do, I heaved back on the rod with all my might. The spoon jerked free and wobbled perfectly again. Then George suddenly cut the motor. I glanced at his throbbing rod and reeled in to watch him land a good bass. The following day the weather got worse. There was no place you could fish where the waves weren’t rearing up and throwing water with both hands. So we spoon-plugged, bouncing the little flat-bottomed boat through the i nor’easter with our spoons ripping ! through the weeds. We caught our bass that way. Everybody on the lake who used Buck’s method took their limit. Those who didn’t came in talking about poor fishing.
We fished about two miles of water like this; speeding along, jerking at weeds, feeling the spoon recover its vibrant wobble, only to hang up again. But we caught nine fair bass. And we continued to take them after we left the lake and trolled down the middle of the river that forms its outlet.
I tried my fly rod on some sheltered coves in the river, but I couldn’t even interest a panfish.
Then the wind strengthened until we decided to get back to camp. It was a wild ride, traveling at high speed through high, white-capped waves, but we trolled the spoons anyway, and darned if they didn’t get several bass.
Drenched by flying spray during the run back to camp, I climbed out of the boat and thought it all over. I wasn’t sure I liked this kind of fishing. I’d never been wild about trolling, and this wasn’t even like any trolling system I’d known.
My top speed for trolling previously was about the pace a man would set rowing a boat. Imagine running a fivehorse motor near top speed on a small boat and catching bass behind it. Still I couldn’t deny that the method worked. In fact we made our catch while other anglers on the lake were failing with orthodox systems. I suppose I resented this new strategy just because it seemed such a rough, coarse way to fish — almost like snagging them.
That was before I met Buck Perry, the fisherman who originated this method. Buck blew into camp just after I returned from fishing. I had only a few words with him at the moment, but it was enough to make me conscious that I’d met a scholar as well as a fisherman. I wanted to hear more about his system then, but a friend of his from Wisconsin was waiting to go fishing. The wind was blowing a gale now, yet they hurried to get ready and were soon out on the lake. A few hours later they came in with two limits—and they’d released a lot of keepers.
I was just finishing supper that night when Buck stopped by. “Can you go out with me tomorrow?” he asked.
“I’ve been wishing you’d invite me,” I replied. “You sure seem to have something. George gave me a taste of it this morning, and I’d guess he’s safe in offering his ‘No bass, no charge’ challenge. But there must be more to it than what he showed me.”
“Well, you’re responsible for the system,” Buck answered, surprisingly. “Your books and articles, in which you pointed out the need for controlled depth, speed, and action in fishing different lures, gave me the idea. I had to make my own lure—in different weights and sizes—to get what I wanted. The result is the spoon and the system you saw. I call it spoon-plugging. Let me show you tomorrow.”
The weather was still in a black mood the next morning. The same northeast wind was making Florida positively chilly. We stalled until about 10 o’clock, hoping the wind would die. It got worse instead, but the air warmed a little, so out we went anyway. To dodge the soaking we’d get on open water, Buck headed for the east side of the lake where the wind was partly blocked by the swamp forest. We started trolling near the weeds, in comparatively shallow water, moving out some 20 feet farther when we got no response. There we picked up four bass in two trips across the same small area, so we anchored at that spot to try casting. Buck tied on a larger version of the spoon he’d been trolling with, while I got out my spinning outfit and a spoon.
Buck’s spoon took two bass to my one at the start. Then, since the fish that struck seemed to be coming in from deeper water, we moved out another 100 feet. Buck’s lure, which hugged the bottom throughout his retrieve, also performed better than mine out there— until I started bringing mine in by alternately reeling and letting it sink. Then we both hooked them fast. We spent the rest of the day that way; trolling to locate the fish, then working the productive area by casting. But the casting was just to liven the sport. It was more fun. But trolling—Buck’s spoon-plugging—was the deadly system. It seemed infallible.
I was already convinced, but Buck continued to sell his system during the next two days. The foul weather kept me on the shore, casting. I took quite a few small fish, but only one worth a mention. Buck always came in drenched to the hide and lugging his limit. It was spoon-plugging that made the difference. As Buck points out, it works because it gives you a chance to control more factors that make fish strike. Those are the depth fished, speed of the lure, action of the lure, and size and color of the lure. Buck claims the right combination of those things will take bass every time, regardless of weather, barometer, or anything else. “Bass never stop striking,” he keeps repeating. “They just change their locations and moods.”
Buck’s system is not intended to replace casting as a means of taking bass. It’s just a way to fill your stringer when casting won’t work. You can make systematic experiments with spoon-plugging that will hit on the right combination sooner or later. Just follow these general rules : Start by casting in the shallow water—the zone ranging from the shoreline out to a depth of about eight feet. Small lures work best here, as a rule, and this is also the place to try your surface lures. Try them. If they fail, move out past the 8-ft.-deep zone and start trolling along the shore. Generally you’ll want to use a bright lure for a bright day, and a dark one for a dark day.
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With your lure at moderate depth, experiment with fast and slow trolling. Still no fish ? Get your lure down deeper, bouncing off the bottom if need be, and vary your trolling speeds again. You’ll soon find a combination of speed, depth, action, and lure that works. When you do, stick to it—but only while it works. Don’t become so sold on one combination that you won’t junk it when it fails you. Find still another I combination when conditions change. It’s easy to do that with spoon-plugging. That’s the beauty of the system.
Spoon-plugging has a way of digging the fish out, whether you have to scrape them off the bottom in deep water or gouge them out of the weeds in the shallows. This Florida trip offered a good illustration of what it will do with fish that are holed up in the weeds in shallow water. We cast over such a stretch with surface plugs and bugs without getting a touch. So we spoonplugged ‘em at high speed. Our lures tore through so many weeds we were fouled up 70 percent of the time, but we Í took four bass on our first pass.
Sure, spoon-plugging sounds cockeyed. I hardly think I’d believe it myself if someone told me about it. But, dammit, this really happened. I had a hold of one of the rods.
This story was originally published in the AUGUST 1953 issue of Outdoor Life.
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