Buck fishing Crab orchard lake

[site admin]

I bought a book many years ago titled, "Fishing Southern Illinois" by Art Reid. This was published in the mid 1980's. I purchased the book back then to do research on the lakes down state. The book had no value at all for any information about the lakes. I was getting ready to toss it when I glanced thru it and noticed Buck Perry being mentioned. Below is the story that was written about Buck. Reading this story made the purchase well worth it after all!
The chapter it was in was titled "Depth Finders" (remember, this was back in the mid 80's)


Depth Finders
Of all the new equipment introduced to freshwater fishing during the past 20years, the depth finder has had the greatest impact. I date the introduction of depth finders to about two decades ago because before then they were virtually unknown in southern Illinois. The common depth finder, however, predates its use by Illinois fishermen or freshwater anglers anywhere in the nation. lt was routine equipment on large vessels navigating oceans, lakes, and inland waterways. These commercial units, though, generally were cumbersome and far too expensive for the average angler to own. A depth finder made by Lowrance appeared on the fishing scene in the early 1960s. This was a compact, relatively inexpensive unit designed especially for freshwater fishermen. To say that the Lowrance Company enjoyed an overnight success would be stretching the truth. Stretching it a mile. To my knowledge, one of the first depth finders, a portable model Lowrance, to be used on a Southern Illinois lake was used in June 1966. Bill Harkins alerted me to its presence. He called from the play Port Marina, which he managed, to say that something very strange was taking place on Crab Orchard Lake, and it would behoove me to hurry on out. His tone was unusually urgent, so I went to the dock, having arrived within 20 minutes. Harkins explained that early in the morning two complete strangers had arrived, rented one of his fishing boats, piled it with gear, and then went out on the lake. ln itself there was nothing unusual about this. Strangers rented boats all the time, so Harkins thought nothing of it. When the fishermen returned to the dock about noon, however, Harkins was awestruck by what he saw. "I couldn't believe it," he said incredulously. ,,Those guys brought in seven bass. Seven! And the smallest one weighed about five pounds!" Bill Harkins ordinarily was an unruffled man not given to exaggeration. Now he was more excited than I had ever seen him. Where were the men now, I wondered . "Back on the lake," he said . "They came in, unloaded those bass, took pictures of 'em and put 'em on ice in a cooler, then had lunch and went back out." Crab Orchard in June was not water to be easily conquered by strangers, particularly during one short morning. Harkins and I shared an overwhelming curiosity about these fishermen. "And you don't know their names?" "I heard one of them call the other one, Buck. That's all . Just Buck.Does that mean anything to you?" Buck? Buck? It struck a bell. Buck Perry! It had to be him. Perry was the only bass fishing Buck I knew about who could approach a lake like Crab Orchard and make a dent in a fish population in so little time.
A former college professor from Hickory, N.C., Buck Perry was justifiably renowned nationwide as a substantial presence in bass fishing. It was said, and perhaps rightly so, that Perry knew more about bass them any other human being. In order to put this enviable reputation in the slot it deserves, the reader will recall that in the mid-1960s as a nation we were relatively ignorant of all things to do with black bass. The late, great magazine columnist Jason Lucas was still regarded as the authority on this fish . Compared to the reams of bassy knowledge sequestered in the mind of Buck Perry, however, Lucas, who wrote in the 1930s and forties and on into 1950, was a neophyte. Obviously, Perry didn 't just wake up one morning to discover that he had been touched by the magic wand of fishing wisdom. To the contrary, through the 1940s and 50s he learned his trade the hard way,by painstaking investigation of what makes bass tick and do what they do or refuse to do. By the time I met Perry on Crab Orchard Lake that June day, he had spent so many blistering hours under reflected sunlight that his face was well wrinkled. Even those who remember the era of Jason Lucas may not be aware that when Perry decided to throw in the teacher's towel for a full-time fishing career he also became for all practical purposes the nation's first free-lance professional fisherman. Starting more than three decades ago, the unimposing North Carolina native made his living by proving that supposedly "fished out" lakes and rivers actually were victims of unknowledgeable anglers and not terminally ill from lack of fish. Generally, Perry found the opposite to be true; in many lakes there were too many fish ! Perry was kept busy by fishing-resort associations and chambers of commerce who anxiously hired him to exercise his special skills on their waters. Where these waters were located or the fish species they contained were irrelevant to Perry. The resulting glowing publicity for these lakes more than justified his fees for breathing new life into the seasthmatic fishing holes. Think about that for a minute. At a time when a 10-horsepower outboard motor was considered a big pusher, and there were no highrise swiveling boat seats, or chest-size tackle boxes, or depth finders or bass fishing tournaments, and a TV set in every home with a fishing show on every channel was years away, and Roland Martin (the Well-known professional tournament fisherman, TV show host, and hawl~of products [including sunglasses]), didn't yet have ears sufficiently developed to hold sunglasses, a grizzled Southerner was squinting against the brilliant sunlight reflecting off water he was being paid to fish. Today "Perryisms" commonly infiltrate fishing language fluently spoken across the nation. The terms "structure fishing," "break lines," "fish patterns," "fish migrations" and more we hear in casual conversation were first coined by Buck Perry. Now he and a friend were in a rented boat on Crab Orchard Lake, and Harkins and I had an urgent desire to meet them, and we didn't intend to procrastinate. Harkins was tied up at the marina, so I wheeled around toward my boat. "One more thing," Harkins yelled at my disappearing form, "they use a depth finder. One of those small, portable jobs. I saw them put it in the boat. Does that sound like your man?" Indeed it did. I had heard that Perry had even contributed to the development of the remarkable little Lowrance machine.Perry and his friend, Don Nichols, a United Airlines pilot, of Chicago, were not hard to find. It was a weekday and few other boats were on the lake. It was my turn to be awestruck now. Their boat was anchored directly over, and they were fishing, a spot which until that moment I thought that only AI Peithman and I knew about! Even more astounding, as I approached, Nichols caught a heavy bass! Easing my boat near enough to them to introduce myself, but not so near as to disturb their fishing water, we chatted briefly and agreed to meet at the dock when their fishing day was over. That meeting was a revelation for Harkins and me. In thirty minutes Perry told us more about the bottom structure of Crab Orchard than we thought possible for anyone to know following a single day. As unrealistic as it may appear, Perry not only told us about, but also traced a map of, hot spots he and Nichols found that Harkins, Peithman, and I didn't know existed. Using this information the following day, Peithman and I went to one of them, and on the second cast he hooked a six-pound bass! Compliments of Buck Perry thank you. All of this discovery in such a brief span of time was, of course, made possible by the use of a depth finder. As Perry explained it, "That little magic box may not actual ly catch fish for you, but it quickly eliminates structure where fish won't be, while it indicates where they should be." Perry and Nichols left Southern Illinois after catching a couple dozen bass. All fish weighing less than five pounds were returned to the water, and 10 bass weighing five to seven pounds each were kept for photographing, then cleaned and iced down.
Why did Buck Perry and Don Nichols choose to fish Crab Orchard Lake? Ironically, they were "just passing through," they said, from fishing in Tennessee to a seminar Perry was slated to conduct in Chicago. With a couple of free days, they decided to fish a little. Incidentally, if you have the opportunity to acquire one or the entire run of Buck Perry's instructional fishing books, by all means do so. As an author as well as lecturer, he has been very prolific. Through the 1970s, Perry was an untiring lecturer conducting fishing seminars in which the depth finder always played its significant role. Widely traveled throughout the Midwest, he was hired under contract by the Illinois Department of Tourism to stage his special brand of instruction for anglers in cities and towns from Chicago to Carbondale, in the latter on the Southern Illinois University campus. When I visited Hickory, N.C., in the winter of 1980 and dropped in to see him, Perry was absent though he was reached by phone. I wasn't a bit surprised where my call reached him. He was in Florida, naturally, fishing for bass.

[jwt]

Great article Jim. Thanks for posting it.

[Kevin McClure]

Great article, Jim. I loved the part about Mr. Perry already knowing where most of the hot spots were and drawing them a fishing map. I'm guessing you had to type this in by hand. Thanks for sharing. It's more great history of Mr. Perry. Kevin

[Fran Myers]

Thanks Jim. Great article.

[Scott Duff]

This is spooky!!! I found this article only last week doing a google search and ordered a copy of Fishing Southern Illinois used. I received the book YESTERDAY! Just this morning, I sent a note to Brett C and John B and was going to bring this up at this week's meeting. Then at Noon, I checked the website and discovered this post. The article sure provides some great food-for-thought.

To add, back in 2006 at the Carbondale Outing, the late Bart Allen told me that Mr. Perry had always spoken excitedly about fishing Crab Orchard many years prior and was so glad the spoonpluggers were still fishing it. Nevertheless, Bart had to explain to Buck that some of his favorite spots were no longer there due to extensive erosion (wind) and silting. That same evening, Bart suggested we go out on Crab and trace the silty remains of the old channels using our depth finder, markers, and lures to locate/fish mid-lake features (channel junctions, etc)...you know, those "hot spot" question marks Buck put on his maps before launching the boat. Really interesting stuff. I know some of you also have stories about the early days of that outing.

Thanks for posting, Jim.

Scott

[ltharley]

Awesome. Thanks

[site admin]

I was telling someone about this story/article recently. A great read. Giving it a bump to the top again, for those of you that have not read it...

[ltharley]

A must read in 2013 and still...
Thank you.
Dennis

[Sonny]

Excellent! Thanks for posting.


Sonny

[Hal Standish]

Great read! Thanks Jim for all Your work!

[Team9nine]

The original newspaper picture from that trip that appeared June 20, 1965, and the article headline (article written by Art Reid, who passed away back in 2005 at the age of 78).

BP_DN.png (552.34 KiB) Viewed 18605 times

[site admin]

Cool! Thanks for finding and sharing that pic!

[John Bales]

This post is a year old. Can't have that. John