Elwood L. Perry, 90; Invented the Spoonplug Fishing Lure
LA Times
Elwood L. “Buck” Perry, who invented the Spoonplug fishing lure and is considered the father of structure fishing, a system calculated to aid anglers in finding their catch, has died. He was 90.
Perry, the owner of Bucks Baits, died Aug. 12 in Taylorsville, N.C. His family, announcing his death on his website, gave no cause of death but said he had been in declining health.
A lifelong fisherman, Perry concluded that fish move predictably, not willy-nilly, along routes dictated by underwater topography, following contours in the lake or streambed. He also decided they spend much of their time in deep water and move along the contours to shallow water, where they become more active. How far they go depends on several conditions, including weather and the water, he said.
To help figure out where any variety of freshwater fish would be, he developed a combination of a spoon and a plug, which he patented in 1946 as the Spoonplug. He described the lure as “a shoehorn that’s been tromped on by a horse.”
Perry designed seven sizes, the largest for deep water. To map a river or lakebed, he used the smaller ones first to tap the bottom, then gradually substituted larger sizes to go to deeper water until he found fish. Perry could cover a new lake in a few hours.
He never accepted the excuse that fish weren’t biting, responding: “You’ve got to go out and make them strike.”
“Spoonplugs,” he said on his website, “are lures (tools) specifically designed to find productive structure, locate fish, and make them strike…. The wobbling action is designed to trigger strikes, especially when bumped or ‘walked’ along the bottom.”
In 1973, Perry published “Spoonplugging: Your Guide to Lunker Catches.”
Fishing Lure Mailbox
Old Fishing Lures Mug
Spoonplugging
Buck Perry’s guidelines for fishing success
