The Day When a Single Cast Made History

It was June 2, 1932, when then-20-year-old angler George W. Perry (left) caught the world-record, 22-pound 4-ounce bass from Montgomery Lake, an oxbow of the Ocmulgee River in Telfair County, GA. He caught the fish on a natural-scale finish Creek Chub fintail shiner--the only lure he had in his tacklebox.

Before going any further, let me acknowledge a couple of related feats. First, while Perry alone held that title for 77 years, July 2, 2009, signaled the start of a new era. On that date, Manabu Kurita caught a 22-pound 4.97-ounce bass from Japan's Lake Biwa and was declared to have tied the world record.

I'm also well aware of the 25.1-pound bass that angler Mac Weakley foul-hooked, weighed (but not on certified scales), photographed, and then released March 23, 2006. He caught the giant fish at Dixon Lake in Escondido, CA, but decided not to enter it as an IGFA world record. In May 2008, then, that fish was found floating belly up in weeds--apparently having died after spawning. Weakley identified the fish from a telltale black spot located above its gill line.

A fintail shiner--not the one Perry used, though.

Those latter two facts aside, I'm concentrating this story on the legendary Perry and, to a small degree, the Creek Chub Bait Company (CCBCO) of Garrett, IN, which made the lure he used to catch his world-record bass.

As Perry described that historical event in a 1969 interview, the thing that first got his attention was a disturbance near a shallow stump. "I made a cast to it, and all at once, the water splashed everywhere. I remember striking, then raring back and trying to reel, but nothing budged," he continued. "I thought for sure I'd lost the fish--that he'd dived and hung me up. I had no idea how big the fish was, but that didn't matter. What had me worried was losing the lure."

The photo that surfaced in 2006.

As it turned out, the fish wasn't hung and soon moved. A brief battle ensured before Perry lifted the fish into the boat with both hands.

The story goes on that, when Perry took his fish into town, someone told him about a big-fish contest Field & Stream magazine was running. Having decided to enter this contest, he got the fish weighed (on a set of certified post-office scales) and measured, then took it home, where it was cooked and served for dinner the next two nights--after all, it was the Great Depression. He subsequently was notified that he had won the contest prize, consisting of $75 in sporting equipment.

Unfortunately, no one ever yet had seen a photo of the record catch when Perry, a pilot and mechanic, died in a 1974 plane crash at the age of 61. Bass-fishing fans everywhere only knew there were some rumors circulating that a couple of photos had been taken of the fish.

The photo Baab received in a June 2013 email.

Finally, in 2006, a photo surfaced, showing two unidentified people holding what is reportedly Perry's bass. The whereabouts of the other photo, however, remained a mystery until June 2013, when Atlanta Chronicle longtime outdoors writer Bill Baab received an email, including an attached photo dated June 2, 1932, of Perry holding a huge bass, along with a message that read: "Happy Anniversary."

The email's unidentified sender claimed to be a descendant of a fishing buddy who was with Perry when he caught the world record. The sender said the photo was found in a barn the family owned in Florida, but then declined to answer any questions the recipient might have.

Baab subsequently went on record as saying he was sure the man in the emailed photo was Perry. However, he couldn't say if the fish was his world-record catch, or if the photo had been altered.

It may never be known conclusively if either/both photos are the real deal, but this much we do know: George Perry's June 2, 1932, fish still remains in the record books and will continue to do so until someone perhaps breaks it one day.

According to my research, Perry had Jack Page, a fishing buddy, in the homemade boat with him the day he caught the world-record bass. They kept this boat at Montgomery Lake. And they always carried a single True Temper rod, Pflueger reel, and, of course, the Creek Chub fintail shiner lure. Their standard practice was for each to take a turn casting, while the other sculled the boat.

Over the years, from their inception in 1916, the Creek Chub Bait Company introduced more than 75 catalog-color combinations and more than 145 different standard lure models. Some of these colors and lures were made for a very short time, including the fintail shiner, which vanished in the 1930s, while others were offered for decades. When the company closed in 1978, most of the equipment, company name, and supplies were sold to the Lazy Ike Corporation, which moved operations to Iowa.