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RAY SCOTT OUTDOORS, Inc. News Release
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Tribute To A Bass Fishing Pioneer MotorGuide: The Story of Most fishermen today take for granted the everyday use of the foot-controlled electric trolling motor. But some 50 years ago "hands-free" fishing was still a dream until a Jackson, Mississippi building contractor named Garrett H. Harris determined to make it a reality. An avid bass fisherman, G. H. Harris wondered if a better idea could be invented to allow hands-free operation of an electric motor or even the timeworn sculling paddle. He had a SilverTrol electric, the pride of its day, which operated from the stern as a hand-controlled unit. G. H. Harris, with a bassin' man's tinkering mind, wanted to use his foot to control the boat from the bow and not with his casting arm. After months of experiments, Harris finally produced a spring-loaded direction control that he could operate with his foot to guide the boat. And when he took his foot off the pedal, the spring would return the electric motor to the straight-ahead setting. G. H. Harris died August 17 at his home in Shalimar, Florida. He was 92 years old. "Bass fishermen know the brand MotorGuide," said Ray Scott, founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.), "but few associated the man - G.H. Harris - with the invention that truly revolutionized bass fishing. "Being associated with MotorGuide, as its national spokesman," continued Scott, "I got to know G. H. Harris late in his life. It's not often you meet an individual that changed the course of fishing. "G. H. Harris called the invention his 'electric paddle' in tribute to the times when a sculling paddle was the mode for positioning a boat. Even in his 90s, Mr. Harris had a sharp, inquisitive mind and enjoyed talking about his innovation and showed me one of his original prototypes. Crude in design, but it worked. And his idea is still working today." Harris trademarked and received a patent for the first-ever foot control system in 1951. But nine years and $30,000 passed without fishermen getting the benefit of the new idea. The big boom in bass fishing's growth was another 10 years down the road. However, G. H. Harris enjoyed a happy coincidence. He became friends with Dick Herschede, owner of the Starkville, Mississippi grandfather clock company. Looking to expand the clock company's product line,
Mr. Herschede took on the task of marketing and manufacturing the
"Motor Guides," now the world's most powerful foot-control
electric and the rest is history as the saying goes. After being acquired by
Zebco Fishing Tackle under the Brunswick Corporation, the Born in Amite County Mississippi on August 13, 1909, G. H. Harris spent his boyhood fishing the oxbows off the Mississippi River. "We lived six miles into the backwoods, north-east of Gloster. Folks back there claimed it was so far back in the country…they had to pipe in daylight," said Harris. The summer after the ninth grade, Harris got on as the "waterboy" for a building site in Jackson, Mississippi. The job superintendent was his brother. In two weeks, he climbed the ladder to carpenter's helper. By a month's time, a foreman loaned Harris a saw and hammer and the job of apprentice. So began G. H. Harris' career in the building and contracting business. During the World War II era, he became one of the pre-eminent homebuilders in Mississippi, advised the U. S. government on mass building housing for war workers and later honored as a charter member of the National Association of Home Builders. But, it was G. H. Harris' frustration of trying to control a boat and bass fish that proved the genesis of the modern foot-control fishing electric. Today, the Tour Edition by MotorGuide is the foot-control electric mounted on the bow of the world championship BASS Masters Classic "official" rig, and is endorsed by professional bass anglers everywhere. The pros may not recognize the name G. H.
Harris, but each owes him a tribute. For his idea of a foot-control electric
motor has made their jobs a lot easier.
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