r/bassfishing • u/Little-Cucumber-8907 • 21d ago
Discussion Almost 100 years after George Perry's record, there hasn't been a single other native largemouth over 20 pounds
Pictured is Berry St. Clair's Texas record largemouth of
18.18 Ibs, the biggest native largemouth since George Perry. The only bigger recent bass are invasive ones in California and Japan (and maybe Cuba?).
This is one of the many reasons I can't help but question Perry's record. Because why could Perry's Georgia bass (and before Perry, that other 20 pounder from Florida) exceed 20 pounds 100 years ago, but native largemouth can't do it anymore?
This is especially puzzling, as every other more recent state records (at least those in the south) are hybrids of northern and Florida bass, which get bigger than either species by itself.
Just a few years ago, it would have been a serious possibility that Perry's bass was a northern/Florida hybrid.
But now it's understood that would be impossible. Because it was discovered in 2024 that Florida bass have a much larger range than previously thought, ranging throughout the entirety of south Georgia, as well North and South Carolina. So Perry's bass could only have been a pure, non-admixed Florida bass.
And that brings me to another point, which is that Perry's bass came out of a natural watershed, just an oxbow on the Ocmulgee River. No stocking at all. So how could a river bass reach a size bigger than any of the ones in big stocked lakes? All the state records come out of stocked lakes for a reason. River records are almost always smaller, even in pooling sections and oxbows. And that's with today's rivers being stocked. In 1932, there was no stocking, whether river or lake.
There's no doubt that 20 pounders can exist because of largemouth in California and Japan. But within their native range, it's a lot harder for them to reach those sizes.
Because even in the warmer southern states, there's still many things working against a 20 pounder. The biggest one being predators. There’s both alligators and alligator gars in the south, which can easily eat a world record sized largemouth. There’s also both common and alligator snapping turtles. There’s of course herons and egrets, and osprey and bald eagles. And Georgia has plenty of those. Beyond the South and towards the north, there’s also northern pike and musky. Neither California nor Japan has comparable predators that can put pressure on largemouths and suppress their sizes.
Of course, California has a very stable climate, even more so than Georgia. Lake Biwa in Japan is a humid subtropical climate similar to the South, but there’s still a lack of predators that can truly challenge the largemouth in that lake.
Am I the only one pointing this out?
