75 Years and Counting – Largemouth Bass Record Remains

"If it hadn’t been raining 75 years ago, we wouldn't be here today," Bill Baab told a crowd that had assembled beside Montgomery Lake, an unassuming oxbow off Georgia’s Ocmulgee River.

The group had gathered to commemorate the world record largemouth bass at the actual site of the historic catch and to dedicate a new roadside marker that would be put up by the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division (WRD), and Baab, retired outdoors editor of the Augusta Chronicle and a widely recognized authority on the world record bass, was recounting the historic day.

Rain prevented George W. Perry from plowing his fields on June 2, 1932 and prompted him and friend, Jack Page, to launch a homemade wooden boat onto the secluded South Georgia lake in hopes of bringing home some food for his family. Far beyond food for the table, Perry ended up reeling in the most significant catch in fishing history – the world record largemouth bass – a record that has now stood three quarters of a century.

"The story of the world record largemouth bass catch has a wonderful ‘everyman’ quality to it – making it easy for people to identify with George W. Perry," said WRD Director Dan Forster.

Perry was throwing a Creek Chub lure, which, according to his son, Dazy Perry, was one of only two lures the 20-year-old farm boy owned. He thought he had gotten hung on the stump he cast near when the giant fish first hit, and that bothered him because it was during the Depression, and he couldn't afford to lose half his fishing lures. Turns out it was no stump!

While some uncertainty remains about the specific lure, it was either a Creek Chub Wigglefish or a Creek Chub Fintail Shiner. Perry said it was the latter in a taped interview conducted in the 1970s; however, some reports suggest it was the former.

Interestingly, the fish Perry’s catch replaced in the record book – a 20-pound, 2-ounce fish from Florida’s Big Fish Lake, also fell to a Creek Chub lure. The Florida fish ate a Creek Chub Pikie, which later became one of Perry’s favorite lures and which remains a highly popular big-fish lure even today.

As part of the ceremonies on June 2, 2007, Dazy Perry and other family and friends of George Perry stood in the rain on the banks of Montgomery Lake and cast Creek Chub lures into the very waters where the world-record bass had bit.