Another giant catch was described in Fishes and Fishing in Louisiana by James Gowanloch. In 1933, Captain Jay Gould of Hollywood, Florida captured a manta ray that measured 19 feet, 9 inches from wing-tip to wing-tip. The ray was hooked on a large shark hook on 1,200 feet of 1/2-inch rope, and when it had been subdued and towed back to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the city’s 20-ton crane had to be used to lift the fish from the water, after the chain hoists on three smaller cranes were stripped while trying to bring it up. The manta ray’s weight was estimated at 5,500 pounds.
The 22-pound, 4-ounce world-record largemouth bass caught by George Perry in Georgia’s Montgomery Lake was unmatched from June 2, 1932 until Manabu Kurita caught an equally big largemouth on July 2, 2009 in Japan’s Lake Biwa. That’s a long-standing record by anyone’s measure. But one fish record has stood almost twice as long and remains unbroken—a 4-pound, 3-ounce IGFA all-tackle record yellow perch caught in New Jersey by Dr. C.C. Abbot in May 1865, 150 years ago!
A largemouth bass nicknamed Dottie, perhaps the largest ever recorded, was caught at least twice by anglers fishing 72-acre Dixon Lake near Escondido, California. (The fish was recognizable because of a unique black mark on the underside of the right gill plate.) When Jed Dickerson caught it in 2003, it weighed an astounding 21 pounds. He released the fish healthy and alive. When Dickerson’s friend Mac Weakley caught it again in 2006, it weighed 25 pounds, 1 ounce on a hand-held digital scale, making it a potential new world record. Weakley decided to release the bass, however, because he had unintentionally foul-hooked it. The bucketmouth turned up dead in the lake two years later, never having been caught again.