The World Record Bass Nobody Could Prove (1932)
On June 2, 1932, a 20-year-old Georgia farmer named George Perry caught a largemouth bass in Montgomery Lake, an oxbow of the Ocmulgee River. It weighed 22 pounds 4 ounces on a post office scale in Helena, Georgia. His family fried it and ate it. No photograph was ever proven, the notarized entry form was lost in the 1950s, and the only other witness was never found.
More than ninety years later, the fish is still the world record. This is the story of George Perry, the Field and Stream contest he won twice, the two mystery photographs, the bass from Lake Biwa that tied him in 2009, and what his own measurements say about the weight.
0:00 Fried in a skillet
0:38 Montgomery Lake
0:59 George Perry
1:22 The second of June, 1932
2:39 Helena
3:29 Supper and a shotgun
3:48 After the record
5:11 The missing paper
6:14 Shades Mountain, 1974
6:52 Jack Page
7:13 The photographs
8:38 Dottie and Kurita
10:25 The roe
10:48 The formula
11:18 The scale in Helena
Sources: Bill Baab, Remembering George Perry; Bassmaster, “George Perry’s world record bass” and “The story of George Perry”; Georgia Outdoor News, “A World Record Bass”; Georgia Historical Society, marker “World Record Bass” (1984); Wide Open Spaces, “The George Perry Bass: Unanswered Questions About the World Record 90+ Years Later”; Josh Alwine, “George Perry and the Greatest Whopper Ever Told” (Lunker Lore); OutdoorHub, “Mysterious Photo of George Perry’s Legendary Largemouth Potentially Uncovered” (2013); Vic Dunaway, Sports Afield (1969), as quoted by Bassmaster; International Game Fish Association all-tackle records.
Photographs: Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information collection, Library of Congress (public domain). National Archives and Records Administration (public domain). Auckland Museum (CC BY 4.0). State Library of Queensland. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (public domain). Boston Public Library, Tichnor Brothers postcard collection (Dublin, Waycross, Altamaha River, Brunswick). Helen Hyde, Cypress Swamp (1917). Advertisements and book pages 1912-1926 via Internet Archive (public domain). The 2013 photograph and the Waycross photograph as published by OutdoorHub and Bill Baab. Georgia Historical Society marker, Wikimedia Commons. Largemouth bass photographs and paintings: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain). Lure illustrations: Louis Rhead, Fisherman’s Lures and Game-Fish Food (1920). Ocmulgee River, Telfair County, Dixon Lake, Lake Biwa and other modern photographs: Wikimedia Commons contributors (CC BY / CC BY-SA).
Film: Prelinger Archives home movies (Medicus collection, fishing 1941; family vacation, 1934), Flying Businessman (1953), U.S. Department of Agriculture, The CCC Fights Erosion (1934), via Internet Archive (public domain).
Maps and cards: Record Catch.
Music: “Dark Times” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Music: “Slow tide” by u_98673jp944 (Pixabay).
Music: “Scott Joplin – Palm Leaf Rag” by Abydos_Music (Pixabay).
Music: “Dark Tension Atmosphere” by Universfield (Pixabay).
Music: “Sad Piano Emotional Rain Story” by alex-morgan (Pixabay).
Music: “Melancholic Strings Background” by JorisVermeer (Pixabay).
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