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Bob Cobb

Four Who Made A Difference:
A Winning Parlay for Bassers

 Play The Name Game To Find Out Why

 TULSA, OK – Let’s play the name association game.  In the sport of fishing name the innovations and/or ideas the following contributed to the advancement of bass fishing:  (1) Carl Lowrance, (2) R.D. Hull, (3) G.H. Harris, and (4) Don T. Butler.

 If you score three out of four, your batting average is way above normal where angling archives are preserved.  Tulsa, Oklahoma has a rich history and bassin’ tradition, and there’s a T-Town connection for our quartet of legends. 

 Carl Lowrance, who moved his operation from Joplin, Missouri in the early 1960s, started the use of sonar for finding fish with his famous little “Green Box.”  The Lowrance Electronics company, now headed by son Darrell Lowrance, has worldwide recognition as the leader in marine electronics and advances in GPS (global positioning satellite) mapping and tracking technology.

 As the early-day pioneer Carl Lowrance changed the myths of fishing about finding and catching bass away from the shoreline, following the shallow-water spring fling and the spawning season.   With sonar flashers and now digital imagery anglers probe the drop-offs and hidden humps in deeper water to uncover the mother lode of largemouth schools.  Credit Carl Lowrance as the sonar-use trailblazer for changing the course of bass fishing.

 The word “Sonar” is an abbreviation for SOund, NAvigation, and Ranging.  It was developed as a means of tracking enemy submarines during World War II.   A sonar consists of a transmitter, transducer, receiver and display. 

The little “Green Box” and Carl Lowrance’s belief in sonar as a fish-finder convinced fishing writers of the day, like Ted Trueblood of Field & Stream fame, of its potential.  The word spread and the rest is angling history.

 R. D. Hull made his entry into the Fishing Hall of Fame when he walked into Tulsa’s Zero Hour Bomb Company, a manufacturer of oil well devices, with his crude closed-face spinning reel.  Backlashes were the curse of the time for old-fashioned level wind reels.

 As Rube Goldberg as the “beer can” cover design appeared watchmaker Hull’s idea had merit.  Reportedly, he and his brother, Ott, had wrestled with the backlash reel problem for years.  Even to the point of R. D. talking his brother into walking around the West Texas tank (pond) they fished and dropping an old South Bend plug in the water, so the older Hull could reel it across to avoid the cast-and-cuss line overrun problem. 

 The closed-face idea hit R. D. Hull as he watched a produce worker jerk string from a cone-shaped spool of twine in a grocery store.  He could see fishing without line snarls.

 Thus, the world famous Zebco reel emerged (the name taken from the letters of the Tulsa Company), and fishing hasn’t been the same since.  The Zebco Model 1 was introduced at the Chicago, Illinois tackle show by salesmen using boxing gloves to cast the push-button reel with “zero” problems.  Today, the Zebco Model 33 is still one of the world’s most used reels and, perhaps, R. D. Hull’s biggest contribution although he designed many other models. 

 Don T. Butler is a former Tulsa lumberman who built the foundation, from which Ray Scott pioneered the early growth of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.) into the world’s largest fishing organization.  Butler showed his faith in Scott’s “crazy” idea by writing a $100 check in 1968 as the fledging group’s first bonafide member. 

 Later, Butler would loan Scott $10,000 – with not even a guarantee of payment – to make a mailing and appeal for early day members to join B.A.S.S.  “Without Don Butler’s support and encouragement,” says Scott, “the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society might well have never happened.”

 Butler earned his just reward as the champion of the 1972 BASS Masters Classic world finals on Percy Priest Lake, and became an instant cult hero when the Nashville Tennessean newspaper proclaimed:  “SOB Wins Classic at Percy Priest.” 

The S.O.B. stood for Small Okiebug, a spinnerbait designed by Butler as head of the Okiebug Fishing Tackle Company located in Tulsa.

 As one of the founding members of the Tulsa Bass Club in 1967, Butler was instrumental in recruiting area anglers to fish Scott’s first All-American Invitational Tournament at Beaver Lake, Arkansas.  The Tulsa Bass Club’s bylaws were later followed by the Chattanooga, Tennessee Bass Club as the first “official” club associated with Scott’s new B.A.S.S. organization. 

 Okay, on the average, a bassin’ historian might associate Carl Lowrance, R.D. Hull and Don Butler with their legacies, but can you pinpoint G. H. Harris’ contribution?

 Thanks to the manufacturing by Tulsa-based MotorGuide, a division of the Brunswick Corporation, most fishermen take for granted the everyday use of the foot-controlled 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 fishing motor and forever put aside the time-worn sculling paddle.  He had a SilverTrol electric, the pride of the day, which operated from the stern as a hand-controlled unit.  Harris, with a bassin’ man’s tinkering mind, wanted to use his foot to control the boat from the bow and not sidetrack 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.  When he took his foot off the pedal, the spring would return the electric motor to the straight-ahead setting. 

 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 his idea.  The big boom in bass fishing’s growth and Ray Scott’s B.A.S.S. were 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, Dick Herschede took on the task of marketing and manufacturing the “Motor Guide” now the world’s most powerful foot-control electric fishing motor and the bass fishing world, at large, benefited.  After being acquired by Zebco Fishing Tackle under the Brunswick Corporation, the trademark logo evolved to the one-word use of MotorGuide. 

 G. H. Harris wasn’t easily satisfied.  He continued to “tinker” and received five more patent improvements, including rack-and-pinion steering that gives easy 360-degree direction.

 Now, in his 90s G. H. Harris makes his home in the Florida Panhandle, but it was his early days of fishing the oxbows off the Mississippi River near Gloster, Mississippi that were 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 BASS Masters Classic “official” rig and used by 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 fishing motor has made their jobs a lot easier.

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 Now, can anyone jog our memory?  In the early 1960s, a Tulsa-made single-spinner, called the “Dragnetter,” was the hot lure of the time.  But, the lure maker and the details of its popularity spawned from a backyard garage operation are “lost” from the archives.