Buck Perry

[site admin]

I'll be posting some short clips of Buck...
Here's the first one...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKwhdVqtBvY

[John Bales]

There is a lot to learn about this short clip. Pay particular attention to what he said about getting an anchoring position. Keep in mind that Lake Marion is in florida and consider how the features are laid out. One time I asked Frank Hamill why he never anchored in the Florida lakes. Frank said that the fish in the Florida lakes do not stay in one place long when they become active. They hit the breakline and move along it very fast and this is why Frank threw a marker and did a figure 8 so to speak to see which direction the bass were going along the breakline. Frank said that it's like feeding chickens. If you keep feeding them, they will continue to follow you. Once you stop, they go away. In the Florida lakes, when the bass become active and move to the breakline or muckline, they will move along it and if they stop at all, it will be on a turn or a break and then move so far and then follow the same route back to the deep slot where it all began. I wished that Kenny was around to explain it because he has seen this first hand. Good stuff Jim. John

[Steve Craig]

John,
I feel I have been blessed as I was able to hit Marion before it went downhill. Don Dickson, Tommy Ferencek, a guy from WV(cant remember his name), and I fished Lake Marion for a week in 1979.
The 4 of us caught well over 300 bass that week. Some big ones too. Mostly in the 3-8 pound range.
It was on this lake that I learned how to troll those huge 6 inch and 1 foot breaklines! They could only be seen with that great Needle Meter Buck had built

Figure 8 is right!
Trolling. I believe we only stopped to cast one time that week.
I have to say it was one of the best learning experiences I ever had.
Then we moved to Lake Harris and I had to learn how to "feel" those muck lines. In a Florida Lake, the muck lines are everything. If you cant "see" it, you will be fishing where they aint!
Many times, I had my lure running in the muck, and in essence fishing below the fish, and never knew I was doing so. Don let me go fishless for hours until I finally asked him what he was doing, that I wasnt!

Today, the state tends to draw down the lakes there before the hurricane season hits. A 3 foot drop can really mess things up. Also when the big hurricanes hit, they tend to move the muck lines around quite a bit, and that will mess things up as well.

I feel that every Spoonplugger should hit a Florida type lake at least once in their lifetime. They will not ever regret it.

[John Bales]

My first trip to Marion was when it was in its prime. I had not ever seen a muck line , and had no one to turn to for help. I fished it for a couple of days and after not catching a fish, I did the only thing I knew to do. I had taken the directory with me and I called the greatest Florida lake fisherman I knew for help. Without any mention of names, he told me to troll it at 8 feet and I did that for the rest of the week. I caught a trout line with some catfish on it and some kind of eel which scared the hell out of me when I tried to get my lure back. That was it for a week. I did catch one two pound bass also. I went home with my tail between my legs and sucked it up. I never went back till I got to fish with Kenny Hyde and he showed me everything there is to know about the Florida lakes plus Zaborney and I fished with Mr. Perry for a week and got it straight from the horses mouth. Kenny took me to Marion. When he showed me the muck line, it was at 13 feet. All I could do is hang my head. I had not looked that deep because the information that I got was from what I thought was the best
florida spoonplugger in the world. I had no reason to question his direction. It could have been that he did not know me and figured I didn't deserve to know or simply didn't want to share. That trip was most humbling. Thank god that Kenny showed me the ropes. John

[Steve Craig]

" I had no reason to question his direction. It could have been that he did not know me and figured I didn't deserve to know or simply didn't want to share."

John,
This is actually a pretty good subject to discuss on here.
Even to this day there are Spoonpluggers that do not want the info on the muck lines to be known. Yet the info has been "out there" for many years. Dave Bishop even wrote about then in the National Newsletter once.
I dont quite understand this line of thinking as a true Spoonplugger shares knowledge.
Maybe your fellow told you to run the 8 foot depth, as I recall there being a 6inch breakline at that depth when I was there. While we caught good numbers of fish there, I am sure it was the time of year thing. Pre spawn I believe and the fish were moving up. They were scattered for quite some distances along that breakline, as well as the deeper ones. The bigger fish were along the deeper breaklines and the muck line.

Or maybe he himself didnt know about your ability to find the muck line?
I have a fellow Spoonplugger that recently moved to Florida and is having a terrible time finding the muck lines. It is very hard to do with the new state of the art finders.
I know Buck did it by "feel" most of the time. Don and Tom used their old Flashers as the Needle units wouldnt show it. It was an easy thing to adjust the flasher to "see" the muck line.

A couple years ago, Stephen Parker and I were on Lake Harris in his boat. He had a new Lowrance unit and i was able to use his Flasher Mode and see the muck line after some adjusting. In fact, i had Kenny follow me in his boat to make sure i was running it correctly. You know the old unit Kenny uses, where he could see it perfectly.

Griffin has/had a really great muck line at 13 feet also and the 17 foot slot is not far away. It also has another one at 8 feet. The slot is just over a mile long and i know there are some pretty nice fish in there.

[John Bales]

Steve, I was pretty young on that Florida trip. This was my first look at the Florida lakes. My goal was to find the muck lines in whatever lake I fished and catch the crap out of them. I was very confident that it was going to happen and the reason that it did not happen is not because of a lack of effort but a complete lack of knowledge on these types of water. I do not blame that great spoonplugger for not sharing, however I really didn't like that guy too well for a long time. That trip was humbling but those kind of setbacks are good for a young cocky guy now and then.
There hasn't been anyone fishing the Florida lakes for a good long time. David Bishop and Jon Bouy did some damage on the harris chain. You would think that since a lot of your fishing will be done not much deeper than ten feet that the Florida lakes would be pretty easy to figure out. In my opinion, once a spoonplugger is able to identify the muckline or a major breakline if there is no muckline, you have it whipped for a lot of the season. But........... the hard part is knowing how to use your electronics and then knowing what the change in bottom composition looks like. Once Kenny showed me, I could see what the change looked like . I cannot imagine the downscan units not showing the muckline more clearly than any other unit. But in all of the units, flashers,graphs, and everything else included, if the person using the unit does not have it adjusted correctly, he will never see what he is looking for. On Kenny's Impulse, the power must be turned way down or the change of the bottom condition will never be seen. Taking all of this into consideration, I believe that the Florida lakes are the most difficult bodies of water to learn how to fish and what to look for. Now........... once a person is shown and if that person is already skilled in running the lures, then this fisherman becomes dangerous to the fish. It may be for that reason that those who did know what made those lakes tick,did not want to share with many. I was told after I was shown how to put the florida lakes in my hip pocket that we do not talk about this!!!!!! Not by Kenny but by someone else. Mr. Perry told me that the Florida lakes are very over rated and there are far better places to fish. Frank Hamill told me that the Florida lakes were by far the best learning lakes that he had ever fished. Zaborney is wintering in Florida now. If there are any good lakes left and he finds them, they wont be for long. John

[Steve Craig]

"Mr. Perry told me that the Florida lakes are very over rated and there are far better places to fish."

I agree! Especially out here! Even with our clear water, we have just as big of bass as Florida(probably even bigger), and you can still catch a dandy even under a bad weather condition.
I cant say the same for a Florida lake!
A shallow Florida lake and even a very mild front coming through there and those big gals will bury their heads right into that muck and not come out for a week!

The best way to set up the Flasher was to go out over some hard sand bottom, turn the gain down untill the light just barely shows, then when you go over the muck, the light will completely disappear. As you come back over the muck line into the harder bottom, it will light back up. Pretty simple actually.

I tried to get Steve's downscan unit to see the muck, but I just didnt want to spend the time working with it. We wanted to fish and setting up the flasher was easy and quick at the time.
With some adjustments, i am sure they would work almost as good as the old Impulse units did.

[phillip szafranski]

Gentleman, this is GREAT stuff. This dialog and logic is only associated with Spoonplugging. There is a high probability that I will be moving just North of the Harris Chain within the next three years. I have already begun studying lake maps and I am amazed at the size of some of these waters.
I am not sure if your writing or my third glass of iced tea has my heart racing. Looking at the snow on the ground and eagerly awaiting the melting to occur.

Here are some of my questions: What is the bottom content of the transition area along the muck line...Sand, marl or rock? Why the figure 8 trolling pass after a fish is contacted? Would it not be likely that the breakline would travel in somewhat of a straight line and the figure 8 would have you move away from the area of contacting your first fish? I understand the fish are not holding but their travel would be on this transition and I have yet to encounter a breakline that would figure 8 in nature.

PS - Please ask Zaborney to leave some fish for me!

Thanks for the great contribution involving Spoonplugging education!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Steve Craig]

Phil,
Good luck on your move to Florida!
If I were you, I would spend more time on the Butler chain. The water tends to be deeper on them than they are on the Harris Chain. Like I said earlier. when they draw them down, usually 3 feet or so, this will make a huge difference in your fishing.

The figure 8 was simply to determine which way the fish were headed on the breakline. Many times, they would go both ways, and you might not know which direction. Also, you have to remember that on these types lakes, as an example, say you are running the 10 foot breakline, the 10.5 breakline might be 50 to 100 yards away. The fish are moving from one to the next, and we would figure eight the area to try to determine where they are. But you should spend most of your time on or near that breakline.

When running those long breaklines, we would run pretty long lines. This is simply a matter of physics, as the boat will snake back and forth across the muck/breakline, sometimes several feet, but your lure barely moves more than a foot or two at most. We always had a 700 SP in the propwash with only 13 feet of line back. When the movement started, they would smack the 700. Then we would reel in the long lines and run them as usual. When the activity was over, then we would go back to running the long lines again.(3-4 colors)

Phil,
Most of the time the bottom consists of sand. There is sand UNDER the muck. This is why you need to adjust the Flasher as it will shoot THROUGH the muck and give you a false reading of a hard bottom.
Like John said, the fish will stop at a turn in the muckline/breakline. Sometimes it will simply be a Hard/clean spot on the muckline. Sometimes, and this happens often, it will be a really nice shell bed.
Most of the time, we cant turn our reel fast enough to make them "take", and that is why the trolling outshines a casting position.

Hope this helps to answer your questions.
Steve

[phillip szafranski]

Steve and John,

I wanted to thank both of you for the insightful observations provided on this subject matter. I know I questioned the figure 8 trolling pass but I simply did not consider close multiple breaklines or the fish going in different directions along the transition muck/clean breakline.

FYI - I had a lengthy conversation with John because his typing capabilities are impacted for now due to an injury of the hand. He would have loved to write more but the information offered would have taken him considerable time and effort to communicate.

Again, thank you both!

[Steve Craig]

Phil
Go ahead and post what John told you!

I know the lakes have changed over the years.
The muck lines have moved quite a bit as well too.
Kenny told me that on Kissimmee there were no muck lines where they used to be the last time he fished there.
Those bad hurricane s really mess things up.

[phillip szafranski]

Steve,

Will respond over the weekend after thinking about the conversation.

[TN Dave]

John and Steve,

Thanks for the terrific posting on Florida lakes. Spoonpluggers this is absolutely priceless information on Florida lakes.
Along with John, and others, I sure wish I had known what is contained in the above post before I made my first trip to Florida. It is indeed a Spoonplugging lesson in depth and speed control along a very difficult (different) type of breakline. A very hard lesson for a lot of us to learn; but a lesson that has stayed with us for ever.

Great, great post. Thanks for taking the time and effort to say in a few lines of type what took hours and hours, thousands of miles traveled, and a lot of $$$ to learn.

Good Fishing,

TN Dave

PS: Muck lines (decayed vegetation) occur in other lakes in most parts of the country. One just has to keep an open eye on the depth finder to see it. Sometimes it is a significant breakline and sometimes the muck is nothing but junk on the bottom of the lake. Probably more prominent in Natural type lakes; however, I have seen muck lines in the TVA lakes.

[phillip szafranski]

Here are my notes from my conversation with John regarding the Florida fishing situation:

>> running with two rods on the troll allows for placement of a short line 700 presentation just behind the boat. Seems when the bass are really moving you are likely to have greater success with the shorter line.

>>speed control in excess of 5 MPH required on most occasions and the increased speed allows you to cover water faster while learning and interpreting your fishing situation.

>>muck lines can be irregular in nature and not as easy to follow as the breaklines we are accustom to in the Midwest.

>>even though bass populations may not be as strong in the "glory days", the size and numbers are certainly better than most population in the Midwest area.

>>John stopped the boat on one occasion in an attempt to verify if they were truly following a muck line properly. To test their observation they threw out the anchor on each side of the boat and dragged up the bottom. John indicated a remarkable difference in bottom content was observed when doing this. (I found this to be so simplistic, yet genius in thought process).

>>he explained the logic of the lack of anchoring in this fishing situation...this covered more in depth in prior post.

>>we spoke about the importance of the feel of the lure over harder bottoms versus soft. This is another way to find the transition of hard to soft bottom. MY INPUT --On a couple occasions I forgot my depth finder at home and was forced to troll without. It is amazing to "feel" the change in vibration when working various bottom conditions.

>>John anticipates very little fishing pressure near the areas a spoonplugger will find and fish.

>>many lakes in the area will be a tanic, brown color and these lakes will be tougher to fish successfully.

Again, want to thank everyone that contributed to this discussion point. I have been fishing a few lakes similar in nature to the Florida situation. I find these a very enjoyable challenge and experience. It is nice to fish in areas without much fishing pressure nearby.

PS - ice, please melt soon!

[John Bales]

You took good notes Phil. Only one thing to add. The faster speeds are actually because of the hot temperatures in the south and the combination of shallow water, the temperature of the water gets the fish so active that for most of the hot season ,you will need those speeds to make them take.
Frank Hamill told us that sometimes the water will become so warm that the mucky bottoms will bubble causing sulfer dioxide to escape and when you see that, you can put your stuff away. Evidently a bad change for the fish. Frank always had something good to share and it was good to keep a closed mouth when he spoke. And yes, the ice can go any time. John