TAKEOFF
BASS SCIENCE
GROWING GIANTS
HOW BIG CAN A BASS THEORETICALLY AND PRACTICALLY GET?
t
20
he sight of a truly giant bass
lolling on the surface while trying
to shake a lure or being pulled tri-
umphantly from a weigh-in bag is the
fuel that drives many bass anglers.
Sure, numbers are great, but how
many anglers wouldn’t trade a 50-fish
day for a single shot at a teener?
The pursuit of trophy bass has cre-
ated an entire industry; from rods,
reels and giant swimbaits, to web
forums and YouTube channels dedicat-
ed to chasing giants. For the fishermen
involved in that chase, hidden behind
all the industry and media attention
and obsession is a simple question:
How big can a bass get?
The current world-record large-
mouth is held jointly by Georgia’s
George Perry and Japan’s Manabu
Kurita. Perry caught a 22-pound, 4-
ounce bass in 1932, and in 2009 Kurita
landed one that weighed .96 ounce
more – not enough of a difference per
International Game Fish Association
rules to be deemed the new record.
In addition to those giants, most
bass anglers know the story of “Dottie,”
certainly among the most famous bass
ever caught, so named because of a
telltale spot on her gill plate. She was
targeted every season by big-bass
seekers in California’s Dixon Lake and
caught multiple times. In the most
noteworthy catch in 2006, Dottie pulled
a certified scale down to 25 pounds, 1
ounce, but she didn’t get submitted to
the record books because she was
accidentally foul-hooked. A couple
years later – identified by the dot – she
By TJ Maglio
was found floating dead and weighed
about 19 pounds.
From an empirical perspective, we’ve
got a pretty good idea of how big a bass
can get, and it’s around 25 pounds. In
the 77 years between Perry’s record
catch and Kurita’s in 2009, an astro-
nomical number of hours have been
spent probing the best bass waters of
the world by millions of anglers, and
we’ve only seen three fish caught that
weighed more than 22 pounds (and
one other that weighed exactly 22).
This is not to say the world record
won’t be broken, just that the odds are
likely that we’ve got a pretty good idea
of the upper limit of largemouth growth
potential. The interesting story, though,
is how and what factors influence
whether a bass will reach that potential.
flWfIshIng.Com I feBruary-marCh 2018