Over the past few weeks, we’ve posted a few stories about Jason Lucas. In those stories we’ve touched on the fact that he’s the father of contemporary bass fishing and maybe the first angler to talk about fishing away from the shore. Lucas’ articles in Sports Afield were chock full of anecdotes on how to find fish deep and how to read the shoreline to follow ledges further out in the lake. He also said to pay attention to weedbeds in the middle of the lake or a color change in the water to denote shallow, offshore spots. But it seems not many listened.
Back in the late 60s and early 70s, a vast majority of anglers would only fish bass in the spring of the year – mainly because the fish were shallow and easily targeted. Come the post spawn, when the fish would move from their shallow haunts, anglers far and wide would either quit fishing or quit catching. The few anglers in the know, though, would move off the banks and continue catching fish throughout the summer, fall and winter.
Anglers like Roland Martin and Bill Dance were heavy hitters when it came to fishing offshore structure having learned from the likes of Buck Perry, Jason Lucas, Glen Andrews and other early pioneers of fishing away from the bank. Because of their success on the tournament trails, by the early 70s a lot of words were written about their tactics of finding and fishing deep water.
Yesterday we featured the book Lunkers Love Nightcrawlers – the first major treatise on structure fishing. This week we delve into a smaller publication on the subject, published by the Alexandria Drafting Company, called Bass Structure Fishing.
Bass Structure Fishing was more than a book on structure fishing, though. They were a series of publications that concentrated on certain bodies of water, how to fish them and included an entire chart of the lake, river or inland waterway. Each booklet was authored by a resident expert or guide who described the seasonal attributes of the lake, what baits and areas were best and also explained how to find such areas on the enclosed chart. The books also delve into the equipment of the successful bass angler and the copy I have of Kerr Lake even has a section in it entitled The Pattern written by Roland Martin.
I’m not really certain when the Alexandria Drafting Company started making the Bass Structure Fishing series but a search on the Internet shows they started business in 1956. The first advertisement I’ve seen in a bass magazine was from a 1973 Bassmaster Magazine and it featured three Bass Structure Fishing booklets on Gaston, Santee-Cooper and Smith Mountain Lakes. The book on Kerr was authored by Virginia bass angler Larry Compton and was published in 1974.
The amount of information provided in the booklets is pretty amazing. I’m sure the authors didn’t provide all their hot spots and hot baits but for the knowledgeable angler, the booklets would be priceless. I’m not sure how many lakes they ended up charting and writing about or when they actually stopped printing the series but from the looks of the booklet I have, every bass angler interested in learning about how to structure fish a certain lake should have owned a copy.
So, do any of you out there know more about the Alexandria Drafting Company and the Bass Structure Fishing series?
Back in the 60’s and 70’s lakes were almost none existent here in North Central Pa. Trout fishing creeks and streams was pretty much the norm. When we did take dad’s 8′ John boat with oars to Hill’s Creek Lake or a summer week to Canada to fish we “fished” I don’t think my folks knew about targeting any particular species. Dad would say “drop anchor here” We hardly ever caught a thing but for some reason it still kept my interest. Jump ahead to 1984 and TV fishing, Yes sir, I have had the bass bug from then on and what a ride it has been. Keep up the amazing work, folks like me love it!
Bob, Thank you for the kind words and support!