Friebel ’ s record catch is pretty well documented , but there are some questions . He reportedly caught the fish on Saturday , May 19 , 1923 , but years later , he said it actually happened on the next day .
“ It was a Sunday morning when I should have been in church , and I had to call a grocer to open his store to get the fish weighed ,” he admitted .
Other reports maintain it was weighed on a postal scale . Either way , the scale was certified , and the fish measured 31 inches long and had a girth of 27 inches . When the scale settled on 20 pounds , 2 ounces , someone witnessing the weigh-in apparently accused Friebel of adding weight to the fish using lead sinkers .
That ’ s when Friebel pulled out his pocketknife , slit the fish ’ s belly open and suggested that someone reach inside to find out . There were no challengers after that .
When Field & Stream reported the catch in the September 1924 issue , declaring Friebel the winner of their 1923 contest , they laid it on thick :
The attitude among anglers that you always eat what you catch persisted until about 60 years ago . Catch and release was essentially unheard of before that , and it started in the freshwater trout world , not among bass anglers . We didn ’ t get on board with the concept of releasing fish alive so they could be caught again until the 1970s .
Of course , big fish have always impressed and always been noteworthy , but no one took up the burden of tracking and comparing such catches until the 1910s . That ’ s when Field & Stream magazine started an annual big fish contest .
The Field & Stream contest ran from 1911 to 1977 , and around about the 1920s , they began to realize they had accumulated quite a bit of data on big fish . Scanning their own lists of winners , they began to list “ world records ,” and they crowned Fritz Friebel of Tampa , Florida , as the man to beat in the largemouth bass category .
take off your hats to fritz friebel
Friebel was an avid and talented angler – a traveling hardware salesman who carried his fishing tackle and some old clothes with him on the road so as not to miss any good opportunities . He didn ’ t own a boat but would wade up to his armpits in search of bass .
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MAHLER
Also in the Southern Large-mouth Black Bass Division , the world ’ s record for large-mouth black bass was smashed into flinders . Take off your hats , fishermen all , to ... Mr . Fritz Friebel , world ’ s record-holder , large-mouth black bass . Mr . Friebel smashes the previous world ’ s record by 22 per cent , his amazing black bass weighing 20 pounds 2 ounces , against a former record weight for this class of fish of 16 1 / 2 pounds .
That 16 1 / 2-pound mark represents the next heaviest largemouth entered in the Field & Stream contest to that point . Larger fish – much larger fish – were occasionally reported , including a 23-2 in 1884 and a 24-pounder in the mid 1800s .
A second question surrounding Friebel ’ s catch was more critical than the date . Where did he catch the monster ?
Initially , Friebel and the friends he was fishing with reported that the catch came from Moody Lake , just north of San Antonio , Florida , in Pasco County . You can see it from what ’ s now I-75 . In fact , it came from nearby and aptly named Big Fish Lake , now ( and then ) located on private property .
What is not the subject of controversy is the lure Friebel used . It was a Creek Chub No . 700 Straight Pikie Minnow . The company was so proud of the catch that it featured Friebel in its 1928 catalog , noting “ The Black Bass Record has been Broken – Not Cracked or Bent , but Crushed , Torn Apart and Split Wide Open …. Please leap to your feet and throw your hats into the air . Rah , Rah ! To Mr . Friebel and his black bass .”
Friebel ’ s bass may be the largest ever caught in Florida , but it ’ s not the state record because a state biologist did not document the catch . No one thought about records in those days … including the state . The only reason a lot of these catches were ever weighed at all was because of the Field & Stream contest and the chance to win $ 50 or $ 75 worth of merchandise .
Ultimately , the first recognized world record bass met the same fate as almost every other bass caught in that era . It was cooked and eaten .
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