Record fever's in the air. Barry Bonds, the controversial San Francisco Giants slugger, is honing in on Major League Baseball's career home run record – Hank Aaron's once seemingly untouchable mark of 755. Bonds still has some work to do, but barring any unforeseen circumstances, he'll likely catch, then surpass, Aaron sometime this summer.
But there's another record that's nearing an important milestone. Tomorrow (June 2nd, 2007), George Washington Perry's world record for the largemouth bass – all 22-pounds, 4-ounces of it – will be 75 years old. According to government statistics, the average lifespan for an American male is 75. Perry's record has lasted a lifetime.
One could make the argument that his record is more important than any record in baseball. After all, it's bass fishing, and not baseball, that's our true national pastime, if participation is any measure. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association, 10 million Americans play baseball. Contrast that with their finding that there are 42 million Americans who fish in freshwater, most of whom target bass. Some 11 million of those folks fish exclusively for bass for 14 days or more every year.
And nearly every one of us, every time we venture out onto the lake, pond or river, wants to catch the biggest bass in that body of water. Perry's bass is the ultimate big-fish story.
Perry's record is a modern marvel, for both its longevity and resonance. Two years ago, I wrote Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World Record Largemouth Bass, the story of a handful of men and women obsessed with breaking Perry's record. The centerpiece of the book is the story of Perry, the poor Georgia farmer who was fishing for food and ended up catching the most important world record in fishing.
It's the ultimate egalitarian American story with a simple moral: Anyone can accomplish great things.
In no small way, every character in "Sowbelly" is haunted by Perry's record. It's persisted despite the incredible energies spent by anglers to top it. It's survived numerous near-misses. In 1991, a motorcycle cop named Bob Crupi came within a few ounces of topping it. In 1997, Paul Duclos landed a monster bass, then couldn't find a certified scale. In desperation, he used a bathroom scale, which indicated that he'd broken the record. The IGFA didn't think so, and his scale now gathers dust in one of its storage units in Florida.
And last year, perhaps most famously, Mac Weakley landed a bass that weighed 25 pounds on his handheld scale. But he foul-hooked it in the back and (rightly) never submitted it for the record.
Bonds' chase of Aaron has brought the bass record into sharper relief. The records share some similarities. To purists, Aaron and Perry's marks are sacrosanct – held above all others as feats of unparalleled magnificence. Purity is an issue in other ways, too. Many, if not most, baseball fans feel that Bonds is unnatural, his performance enhanced through chemicals and illegal substances, and thus his inevitable crowning as the home run king will be tainted.
Likewise, there are some in the bass world – the recordholder's son, "Dazy" Perry, the most vocal among them – who believe that the Florida-strain largemouths planted in California reservoirs and made unusually plump with a steady diet of another Fish and Game stockee, the rainbow trout, shouldn't count in the record books. We each have our own moral compasses.
To be sure, there are many differences as well. When Bonds breaks Aaron's record, we'll see the historic home run live or replayed on television over and over and for an eternity. The bass record, if it's broken, will live on in eternity, but it's unlikely that it'll be captured on film.
The biggest difference between the two records, though, is that you and I have no shot at breaking the career home-run record in baseball. But, as illustrated by Perry's story, anyone – you or me or even a 10-year-old girl on her first fishing trip – could break the record for the world's largest bigmouth. Is it likely that I'll do it? Not really. Is it possible? Absolutely.
As Perry's record reaches its 75th anniversary, it's never seemed more vulnerable. Fishing technology's only getting better. California bass are showing no signs of abating their incredible growth. The obsession with topping the record is only getting more intense. And the law of averages has to kick in at some point, right?
During my research for Sowbelly, I came across Black Bass Lore – a book published in 1937, which boldly stated in its preface that "the world record for the largemouth bass will undoubtedly fall this year."
Seems like we've been saying that for a lifetime.
Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World Record Largemouth Bass by Monte Burke is now available in paperback through booksellers nationwide. For more about the book, and its author, visit MonteBurke.com.
