It’s still a fish story for the ages: How George Perry made his catch of a lifetime

Unless you are a fisherman, the name George Perry probably doesn’t float your boat.

But if you’ve ever wet a hook at the river or landed a fat catfish at your favorite fishing hole, you probably know Perry’s catch of the ages holds a special reverence among anglers.

For almost a century, his name has been associated with one of America’s most remarkable fish stories.

He was a heavyweight, like Muhammad Ali. He was a legend, like Mickey Mantle and Tiger Woods.

If he were alive today, he would enjoy major endorsements and have sponsors lining up for a syndicated fishing show.  

Folks would call him the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time.) In history’s tackle box, he was the George Of All Time.

Ninety-three years ago next week – on June 2, 1932 – a  19-year-old country boy named George Perry reeled in a 22-pound, 4-ounce largemouth bass from an oxbow lake off the Ocmulgee River in Telfair County.

Needless to say, it was a keeper.

A half century later, a state historic marker was placed on Georgia Route 117, between Lumber City and Jacksonville, about 97 miles southeast of Macon. It commemorated the world record and hailed Perry for catching what was to become “America’s most famous fish.’’

The revered record stood alone, untouched, for 77 years. It seemed as unbreakable and invincible as Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. For more than a half century, no one came within a pound and a half of the mark.

 Then, in 2009, Manabu Kurita, a 32-year-old Japanese fishing guide, tied the hallowed record with his catch on Japan’s Lake Biwa.

Kurita had to take a polygraph test to prove it.

Perry? Well, nobody had reason to doubt him, even though he could be a bit of a practical joker. Besides, his full name was George Washington Perry. How could anyone named George Washington tell a lie?

Perry and his buddy, Jack Page, were fishing in Montgomery Lake, in what is now the Horse Creek Wildlife Management Area. It was raining that early summer morning. They weren’t having much luck. 

The two men were in a homemade boat built with scrap lumber. They certainly weren’t looking to land a trophy bass. They were fishing to put supper on the table. 

It was 1932, the height of the Great Depression. Perry worked odd jobs and kept his money in a tobacco can.

The fish was 32.6 inches long with a 28.5-inch girth. It was caught on a $1.33 worth of fishing gear, which included 19 cents worth of 24-pound test line made of silk and a store-bought, glass-eyed lure called a Creek Chub Fintail Shiner.

According to local lore, it was the only lure in his tackle box – except that he didn’t have a tackle box.

An avid outdoorsman, Perry was about ready to give up for the day when he noticed a ripple next to a cypress log. He cast the lure and dropped the plug under a heavy cover. At first, he thought his line  might be hung up.  But the “log” started moving in the swampy backwaters.

Of course, Perry had no cell phone to snap a selfie, so there was no photo for posterity. There was no Wi-Fi to let the whole world know about his feat before he could get to his truck and drive back to town. What an amazing tweet that would have been.

World fishing records were not kept back in those days. Still, he was concerned folks might not believe him if he did not document the catch of the day in some way. He had it weighed at the post office in Helena, where the tale of the tape was dutifully recorded and documented by a notary public.

He then took it home to feed his family. 

The six members of the Perry family were able to get two meals out of it. Imagine having that many leftovers from the same fish. 

I never got to meet Perry, but I once met a barber who used to cut his hair. And I interviewed his sister, Cynthia Wilkes, who told me, of course, that fish went straight to the frying pan.

“What else do you do with a fish like that?” she asked me. 

“My family ate it. They got several meals out of it. Those were hard times. We lived on a farm, and you could hardly sell what you raised, except for cotton.’’

It took two years for Perry’s catch to be certified as a world record by Field & Stream magazine. He collected $75 in prize money from the magazine and bought a shotgun, some fishing equipment and outdoor clothes.

Because of Perry’s long-standing record catch, the largemouth bass was designated as Georgia’s official state fish in 1970. Four years later, he died in a plane crash near Birmingham, Alabama.

Artist Fran Hartley was commissioned to do an oil painting of him with the fish for the Telfair County Chamber of Commerce
building.

 The fish tale has stood up to a depth finder of skepticism across the years, facing some of the same kind of scrutiny as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and Georgia’s own Hogzilla. 

But Wilkes, who remembered her brother as “exceptionally smart and lively” with Andy Griffith looks and charm, said he never would have dreamed he would be a household name anywhere besides in his own house.

“He didn’t brag about it,’’ she said. “He didn’t know he had done anything. It was just a big fish.’’

Ed Grisamore caught his first fish with a cane pole at his grandfather’s lake in Hawkinsville when he was 7 years old. He will never forget the tug on the line.