COLUMN : BASS HISTORY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Duke has been writing about all aspects of bass fishing for 40 years . When he ’ s not reading about , writing about , thinking about or talking about bass fishing , he ’ s usually bass fishing . fritz friebel and the first record largemouth
G eorge W . Perry and his 22-pound , 4-ounce largemouth bass from Georgia have held at least a share of the world record for so long that few realize he was not the first record-holder . That distinction belongs to a Florida angler named Fritz Friebel who caught a 20-pound , 2-ounce largemouth in 1923 — a hundred years ago and nine years before Perry ’ s catch .
To say that Friebel ’ s accomplishment has been underappreciated ( and even disrespected ) through the years would be an understatement , especially when you consider that his was just one of two certified largemouths weighing better than 20 pounds until the 1970s , when the California lunker boom began . There ’ s even an argument that Friebel deserved to hold onto the world record until the 1980s .
meet fritz friebel
Not surprising for a man named “ Fritz ,” Friebel ’ s parents were from Germany and immigrated to the United States in the 1890s when they settled in Brooklyn . Fritz was born there three years later . When he was 9 years old , his father — a knitter by trade — stopped in at the neighborhood bar and met a man who told the elder Friebel he was moving to Florida . There was great opportunity in the Sunshine State , he claimed , so the Friebels began saving for the move and eventually settled in San Antonio , Florida , northwest of Tampa .
26 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | APRIL-MAY 2023