A recent post on Outdoor Hub detailing the world’s biggest bass got my wheels spinning. For the time being, let’s forego any further talk of entry fees, Classics vs. Cups and sparkly boats, and take a trip back to the other "world championship" of our sport.
Decades ago, I read of individuals who pursued the world-record largemouth bass. They did so long before the California heyday, in remote areas of Florida and as far away as Cuba. The late, great Doug Hannon, one of the last recluses of Florida’s trophy bass pursuit, talked of these men in his books. They took off for months at a time each spring, traveling deep into the bush. At the time, a record largemouth was estimated to be the most profitable fish in the world. Never succeeding, many of the hunters simply turned burned-out trophy fish guides, unable to hit the big payday.
The mark they pursued was one set by mythical standards a lifetime prior. As legend had it, a poor farmer caught a 22-pound, 4-ounce behemoth bass in southern Georgia, establishing for us the most famous world record to date.
As the Southern record-seekers disappeared, their chances destroyed by tourism, environmental degradation and pure greed, the quest spread west.
Californians learned incredible methods to catch the largest bass in their trout-stocked lakes with surgeon-like efficiency. Fish eclipsing 20 pounds became commonplace. A group of men made headlines locally, then nationally, as they charged toward the unbeatable 22-04 mark. Those men would put 10 fish on the board eclipsing 20 pounds each, yet fall 4 ounces shy of the record.
While no one knew for sure the legitimacy of George Perry’s 1932 catch, we all knew one thing: Despite coming unbelievably close, no one could beat it. It was as if God played a cruel joke on record-seekers and wrote the book Himself.
As time went on, rumors of new world records emerged. One was weighed on a bathroom scale and released. And I personally saw a photo of a monstrous creature eclipsing 32 inches that never made it to shore, but was placed back in a remote Florida waterway by a modern-day purist.
Then, finally, a Californian would catch a bass much bigger than the current record and bring it to a certified scale. But the fish was inadvertently foul-hooked, and thus ineligible for certification.
Later, a glimpse of hope toward progress: A man in Japan legally caught a bass in excess of the current record, weighing 22 pounds, 4.97 ounces. Many thought the record was finally eclipsed – until learning the “2-ounce rule.”
The International Game Fish Association, keepers of the most important records in fishing, requires any new all-tackle world record to eclipse the previous record by 2 full ounces. Therefore the Japanese bass would be listed as a tie. Why this is, I have no idea.
However, this brings up a good point: Why, in today’s modern era, with the requirements of certified, digital scales and 2-ounce cushions, are we holding on to unproven, archaic records?
To look more closely, both the largemouth and smallmouth bass world records are held by fish of which few, if any, photos exist, and are records based almost entirely on memory. Much of that memory is from individuals who are no longer alive. Yet, these are our “indisputable records”? Isn’t that contradictory?
Looking at the only photo known to exist of the Perry record, the bass looks quite big. How big is very unclear. The black-and-white photo of the David Hayes smallmouth record looks drastically smaller than the measurements of the catch later presented, at least to me. But we’re supposed to recognize these as the most important marks in our sport.
While I’m certainly not calling anyone dishonest, what I am arguing is that the method is broken. But how do we fix it? I’m not quite sure.
For the time being, it appears everyone has accepted these archaic records as proven history. So I guess that’s the number we’ll shoot for, and we’ll all do so by 2 or more ounces.
Perhaps things may have been different if the newest, heaviest bass would have been caught on U.S. soil. I’m not sure. And perhaps all of the stipulations, grey areas, asterisks, and the like have now taken away from the lore and magnificence of the record itself. Perhaps it’s no longer the most lucrative aspect of our sport. Is it now more rewarding, both personally and financially, to win a national bass tournament than to catch the largest bass in the history of the world? I hope not, but it may be.
The fault, I believe, may very well lie in the record-keeping process itself. Without question, the Manabu Kurita fish, caught in Japan in 2009 and shown on video weighing 22 pounds, 4.97 ounces, should be the new world record. Yet it’s not.
Will a day come when all of the records will be broken and established with larger fish subjected to more exact measurements? I hope so. Because with that would have to come an increased awareness of the environment and the needs of the fish, along with a stringent catch-and=release ethic for these magnificent creatures. But we’re far, far away right now.
Advancements in technology and equipment, combined with an incredibly fast learning curve of anglers due to a world immersed in information, make the fish themselves increasingly vulnerable. And, unlike other game species (notably tarpon, bonefish and trout), we have very little in place to protect them. Considering we are led to believe that bass are the country’s favorite and most lucrative fish, it’s appalling how over-exploited and disregarded they continue to be.
But for now, perhaps it’s fitting that those old black-and-whites, like those of our grandpa’s greatest catches, still reign over us. They hold the only proof of the records and keep us grounded in that simpler time.
(Joe Balog is the often outspoken owner of Millennium Promotions, Inc., an agency operating in the fishing and hunting industries. A former Bassmaster Open and EverStart Championship winner, he's best known for his big-water innovations and hardcore fishing style. He's a popular seminar speaker, product designer and author, and is considered one of the most influential smallmouth fishermen of modern times.)
