Walleye Structure

Buck Perry—Originator of Structure Fishing Theory

In the 1950s, Elvis was King, the Yankees were perennial champions, the American dream featured a house in the suburbs and a convertible in the driveway, and anglers fished in shallow water. Times were simpler then. Almost no one wanted to rock the boat.

“Structure is the key to fishing success,” cried a lone voice. It belonged to E. L. “Buck” Perry, a boat-rocking furniture maker from North Carolina.

Nobody was listening.

Buck Perry offered controversial answers to the mysteries of fish behavior. “The fish are either deep, shallow, or in between,” he stated with authority. Well, if you think about it, that pretty well covers every cubic inch of the lake.

Perry laid the foundation on which modern fishing theory is built: Fish relate to structure—points, river channels, humps, weedlines, changes in the bottom—especially where depth changes rapidly. He called these drop-offs breaklines and labeled changes like points and turns on the breakline breaks on the break—ultimate concentration points for all gamefish. Fish moved up and down on structure, and if you concentrated on fishing breaks and breaklines, you’d catch fish.

Perry based his theories on his experiences on reservoirs in the South. He designed a series of diving lures called Spoonplugs to fish a variety of depths effectively, from deep to shallow to in between. Their various-sized stamped brass bodies resembled shoehorns and were designed to troll within certain depth ranges, like 6 to 9 feet or 15 to 20 feet, depending on size. Spoonplugs could be cast, allowed to sink, and then reeled in at approximately the same depths.

Spoonplugs bounced over rocks and wood and were effective in the weed-free environments of newly built reservoirs throughout the South. Yet Perry gathered few converts in his home region. So in the mid 1950s, he packed his Spoonplugs and theories and headed north to find someone who would listen.

One of the first to do so was Bill Binkelman, editor of Fishing News, a small Milwaukee-based Boston Store fishing publication, forerunner of Fishing Facts magazine. After Binkelman began publicizing Perry’s fishing success with Spoonplugs on natural lakes in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, the concept of structure fishing spread to the fishing public.

In 1957, Oklahoman Carl Lowrance introduced the first commercial models of a flasher depthfinder, opening a world of discovery to freshwater fishermen. Perry had preached using Spoonplugs to map lake bottom. Lowrance referred to his fish locator as his eyes to bottom, for it revealed depth changes, bottom contours, weeds, and even fish.

Structure fishing, combined with the introduction of the depthfinder, opened the underwater world to anglers. The 1960s and early 1970s were magical years of discovery. Anglers fishing new waters often contacted unfished schools of fish that hadn’t seen lures. Lakes thought to be fished out were found to teem with lunkers.

By the early 1970s, anglers were becoming comparatively sophisticated. As they did, flaws appeared in Perry’s simple yet profound concept of structure fishing. Upper Midwestern anglers often caught walleyes in deep water, but largemouth bass were chiefly caught in weeds. In these cases, at least, deep water did not seem to be the home of the fish. In some waters, walleyes were caught in shallow weeds away from drop-offs.

In 1975, the infant publication In-Fisherman dared to propose new ideas, many of which went against popular concepts. Since then, we’ve discovered so many exceptions and contradictions along the way that we now consider our earlier ideas as only guidelines.

Perry proposed structure fishing theory, and we call our current understanding of the subject modern structure theory. It incorporates more than just cover, the shape of bottom, and changes in depth. Modern structure theory attempts to explain everything that occurs underwater—even how the tiniest plankton and baitfish affect gamefish movement and behavior in a particular type of environment at a particular time of year. Instead of considering only one item—shape—today we focus on the big picture.