The Spoonpluggers Forum

What's your favorite one liner or words of wisdom from Buck? There are SO many..
One of my favorite ones was." you can't condemn those that don't know that they don't know".

What's your favorite Buck Sez??

One of mine is, "You got to check it out!". Just not enough hours in this lifetime. Sure wish I'd met that man.

Terry, Buck and Bud was at Hess lake and into the bass from an anchoring position and I mean into them. They rented a boat that was leaking and every fish they caught were just thrown down onto the floor of the boat. Terry said the water in the bottom of the boat had about 4 inches of water with all these big bass swimming around. Terry told Buck that they had better get going before they sunk. Buck looked into Terry's eyes and said "Catch them till they quit!!!!!" That's not widely known but that's my favorite. One related to that is keep em coming!!!!! Some that don't get into the bass just don't realize how important that is. Those that have never experienced getting into the school just haven't seen what spoonplugging is all about. If you haven"t done it, then there is still something to look forward to. John

MINE IS,MOST OF THE TIME,MOST OF THE WATER CONTAINS NO FISH!!

“Most fishermen live in a very small fishing world.” In nine words he explains: 1-the root of the problems he saw (fishermen with limited success or independence due to lack of true knowledge, or exposure to different fishing situations), 2-the solution he chose (an approach intended to help anyone expand their fishing horizons), and 3-the problems he faced in teaching (hard held beliefs, misunderstandings, and resistance due to people “sot” in their ways.). Genius.

You can't ketchum if your fishing where they ain't

" the more I learn, the more I see there is to learn"
HOW TRUE!!!!!

Knowledge is the Key. It applies to every aspect of life.

My favorite is one he said to me when we were sitting in the backyard of his house in HIckory over at the old shop before it burned. Back in the late 60's I'd guess. He was telling me about the troubles he went through here in the south in getting the people to AT LEAST TRY what he was preaching and how one day he became so discouraged he simply tore up all the promotional materials and threw them in a city garbage can. He said, "I made a vow that I would never try to persuade someone again. And you know what, I never got anywhere until I started telling them all to go to hell".
I thought that was great.....(he was 'grooming' me to be one of the next great teachers). It wasn't for me, I just didn't have the patience for dealing with people. How Don Dickson managed to stay with the educational part is one of the great triumphs of mental discipline and patience, in my opinion. Lotta' years gone by since those days. Regards, Douglas

Hello Mr. Bush glad to see your still here. Would love to here how you found Mr. Perry. It was my young sons magazine drive that led me to him, so thankful for that.
Regards
David Powell

David Powell...here's what you asked about.
I met Buck Perry in the early 60's. Just by pure dumb luck.
I had been fishing with my dad since I was 11 years old and we fished typically, working the shorelines early and late in the day when fish "started biting". We both had enough sense to know that when they stopped hitting they had to be out in deeper water. We just had no clue how to fish that deeper water or where to fish in the deeper water. The word "structure" hadn't even appeared in outdoor fishing magazines yet...(and most of the time the writers STILL get its meaning wrong today 60 years later). I didn't get my first depthfinder until around 1962...the old Lowrance "green box". By that time my dad had passed away and the guys who wanted to go fishing with me had no interest in these "new modern ideas" so I lost a lot of fishing friends....which suited me just fine. I wanted to KNOW how this stuff really worked.
Through the aforementioned 'pure dumb luck' I saw a fishing article in the newspaper about this guy up in North Carolina who had invented a way to fish that deeper water in a controlled manner and was catching fish consistently by doing it. I was all in for that, so I wrote the company and Buck's first wife, Marge, sent me the information...I still have the letter from her in my "buck Perry box". Some of the letters I got from him over the years (which I won't ever show) are hilarious when he is raising the roof about some of those guys up north...except for Carl Malz, who he really thought was a terrific guy.
I ordered the equipment and went to work out of a 12 foot alumacraft boat with a Johnson 9.5 engine. I had success right away.....big stringers, and then bigger stringers, and then more bigger stringers. I thought I was pretty hot stuff too, I was only 24 years old and full of testosterone. So I started making road trips up to Hickory NC to meet with this "man of mystery", Buck Perry. And he helped me a lot both on the water and off the water. That was a hit or miss proposition because he was on the road a lot doing promotions up north so I had to do the "in betweens".
Along about that time somewhere in there, his outfit called Fishing Consultants of America was doing a big promotion in Jacksonville Florida with him, Terry O' Malley, and Vic Saunders. Man, I was chomping at the bit to get in on that and get hired as one of the instructors too. Buck shot the wind out of my sails when he said...."Boy, you're just not ready for that yet. You need a couple more years of seasoning before you can play in the game with us guys". Oh I hit the ceiling...I whined and moaned and pleaded and argued and etc. etc. etc, but Buck stood firm. Later I realized he was right...I wasn't ready at the time. I always affectionately called him "Coach"...he was like some of my coaches in high school, he was an exacting taskmaster who knew what the results would be for the student if the student wasn't hard headed and thought he knew more than the coach.
The relationship grew over they years and I wrote articles for him and we fished whenever we could put it together. He really loved bluegill brim fishing and watching that cork go under too. We liked to talk about the Bible and what Christianity meant to us as sinners saved by Jesus' death and resurrection.
Attached is a pic of three old fishing dogs at a Spoonplugger outing somewhere back in 1998. Me, Buck, and Terry. And one of him and me down in Florida...man where did all my thick curly black hair go??????????

Doug, what a wonderful post and pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Garry Boggs

Doug

As always, a BIG THANK YOU for sharing your Spoonplugging Adventures with us. Appreciated more than you realize.

Take Care

TN David

Thanks man I really appreciate it.

Thanks Douglas. Is that a U.S. Navy vet hat you are wearing?