The International Game Fish Association this week rejected the application for the world-record largemouth bass made by a California angler for a 22-pound, 8-ounce fish. George W. Perry’s 71-year-old mark of 22 pounds, 4 ounces will officially remain the all-tackle world record for largemouth bass, according to the IGFA.
Leaha Trew, 45, of Santa Rosa, Calif., had submitted the record application after she caught the fish out of Spring Lake in California’s Sonoma County Aug. 24. Fishing with her son, Javad, 21, they weighed the largemouth on an IGFA-certified Boga Grip scale and came up with a reading between 22 1/2 and 23 pounds. One other witness saw the bass and the weigh-in. They took one snapshot of the bass then released it.
Trew’s record application became the subject of heated debate in the fishing community in December when it went public. Perry caught his 22-pound, 4-ounce bass out of Georgia’s Montgomery Lake in 1932, and his longstanding record has been one the most sought-after, if not the most coveted, freshwater fishing records ever since. Critics of Trew’s record application cited various reasons to reject it, not the least of which was the lack of physical proof since she released the fish.
The IGFA, which has kept game-fish records since 1939, announced the decision on its Web site Tuesday after months of consideration of Trew’s record application.
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Trew’s catch was not documented to IGFA’s satisfaction, and therefore could not be accepted as a record,” the IGFA press release says.
Rob Kramer, president of IGFA, said in the release: “We don’t enjoy having to reject world record claims, but in this case there were too many unverifiable factors, so we had no other choice.”
Doug Blodgett, records director at the IGFA, said: “It wasn’t one single item that caused us to reject the application, but the cumulative effect of many factors in documenting the fish. There were so many things that led to so many questions.”
According to Blodgett, one of those factors was the photograph, which doesn’t show the fish on the scale nor accompanied by any other size-measuring device. Only one shot exists of the bass because, the Trews said, it was the last shot on the roll of a disposable camera. Other questions surround the existing photo itself, which IGFA officials said might show the fish from a distorted angle.
The IGFA also had to consider that the bass was never examined by a fisheries biologist or any other wildlife management official. Even though the organization doesn’t require examination by a biologist for record consideration, it admits that such an examination strengthens the case for any record application.
The third-party witness to the bass, a man named Charles Fleming, was not fishing with the Trews that day. According to their record application, he was an acquaintance of theirs who had fished with them before. In December, Javad Trew told FLW Outdoors that they had known Fleming for about a month before his mother caught the bass.
Leaha and Javad Trew were unavailable for comment Tuesday afternoon.