Just letting you all know, you can rest easy in Georgia...... Till I get out this weekend......
;D
By Ed Zieralski
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 22, 2006
For almost 74 years, George W. Perry's name has been associated with the most famous largemouth bass ever caught, and for a while this week it looked as if John MacArthur Weakley's name might take the old Georgian's place. But not now.
George W. Perry, you can stop rolling over in your grave.
Late last night, the man better known as Mac Weakley decided he'd had enough of the controversy behind his potential world-record catch, that 25-pound, 1-ounce Queen Kong of a bass he foul-hooked at Dixon Lake on Monday. He decided not to submit the catch to the International Game Fish Association for approval as the all-tackle, world-record largemouth bass.
To tell you the truth, the three of us have been talking to friends and family the last day and Mike (Winn) has been checking the Internet, and we're seeing that it's 50-50 in terms of support for the catch standing as a world record, Weakley said.
It seems 50 percent feel it should stand as a record and 50 percent say it shouldn't. That's why Jed (Dickerson), Mike and I have decided not to submit it as a world record to the IGFA. We don't want to go out breaking the record with so many people doubting it. We want it to be 100 percent or more realistically 90 percent being behind it with no controversy. We plan to be back with a world record bass everyone will get behind.
So ended this crew's current long and grueling quest for the world-record bass, for now. Weakley, Dickerson and Winn watched yesterday as Weakley's controversial catch went national and international. News services and sports shows and even the Drudge Report, for goodness sake, ran with the story like a bass that just gobbled a stocked rainbow trout.
It's been more mayhem than any of us expected, believe me, said Mike Winn, who manned the motor of the boat while Weakley and Dickerson alternated casts at the huge, egg-laden female bass. But it was Winn who posed for all pictures taken of the bass before it was released back into Dixon Lake.
Weakley caught the female from a nest she was patrolling in 12 to 15 feet of water, no more than 15 yards from shore and 15 yards from Dixon's fishing dock. The fact Weakley foul-hooked the bass from a nest in clear water kicked in the more than century-old debate over whether it's ethical to fish for spawning females by irritating them into a frenzy so they smack or inhale a lure.
I have mixed emotions about fishing for spawning bass and I respect other's opinions who feel they shouldn't be fished, Weakley said. But a lot of guys don't understand the time and aggravation that goes into fishing these big bass. The stars really have to be aligned. Conditions have to be perfect. Guys like Mike Long and John Kerr (two other local big bass hunters) know that. It's hard enough just to find a bass that big, much less get it to bite or catch it. Only the people who have caught and fought these big bass know that.
Besides the ethical question of fishing spawning female bass, the bigger issue for Weakley's bass and Dixon Lake was whether the catch would have been approved as the all-tackle world record by the IGFA. Now that's not an issue.
Earlier yesterday, Jason Schratwieser, conservation director for the IGFA, commended Weakley and crew for releasing the bass, which, had it been approved, would have shattered Perry's nearly 74-year-old record of 22 pounds, 4 ounces, the weight of the lunker the Georgian caught June 2, 1932, at Montgomery Lake in Georgia.
Schratwieser said yesterday that Weakley's catch, like all potential record catches, would have been considered for the all-tackle world record had he submitted it.
Weakley was putting the components of the application together, but the gaping holes included the fact that Weakley unintentionally foul-hooked the fish, didn't take measurements of its length and girth and didn't weigh it on a certified scale.
We don't have any information on the fish right now, so we don't have any comment, Schratwieser said yesterday, not knowing Weakley was going to change his mind about submitting the catch for approval. But if it's submitted, it's something we'll discuss and look at. Absolutely. One thing we never want to do is penalize a recreational angler for releasing a fish. I commend the guy for releasing such a big, spawning female because she'll contribute a lot to that lake.
A big female like that will produce more eggs, but more importantly, more quality eggs. There may be a genetic component that she passes on to subsequent generations of larger, healthier fish.
Schratwieser added that the fact Weakley didn't take measurements of the fish length and girth, an integral part of the IGFA's application process wouldn't have mattered if the photos and video of the weigh-in he took substantiated the bass' monstrous size.
We like to have the measurements for several reasons, Schratwieser said. One is for scientific purposes, so we can get a better understanding of the size of the species. Measurements also help confirm the dimensions of the fish if the pictures are lacking in the application.
One of the key issues would have been the foul-hooking of the bass. By IGFA rules of angling, so long as Weakley didn't intentionally foul-hook the bass, his catch would have been viable. But because the catch wasn't legal by California Department of Fish and Game regulations, it violated one of the IGFA's main principles, which is that anglers must comply with equipment or angling regulations.
State fish and game regulations in California clearly say that a fish, to be legally caught, must be hooked in the mouth while it tries to take a bait, lure or fly. Weakley didn't violate the law when he accidentally foul-hooked the bass, but he and his crew did violate the law by not immediately releasing it.
The fish has to voluntarily take the bait or lure in its mouth, and if it didn't, it's not a legal fish, said Erick Elliott, Julian-based game warden for the Department of Fish and Game.
By the letter of the law, it's a violation because it's been illegally taken and not supposed to be in possession. But in the spirit of the law, a fish that big, it's human nature to want to document that catch. I don't know if I would have written a ticket for that even if I was watching it.
Jim Dayberry, who is supervisor of rangers at Dixon Lake, said yesterday that he and his staff respected the way in which Weakley, Winn and Dickerson handled the bass after it was caught and dealt with the massive publicity the catch produced.
They saw how much Jed's 21-pounder (the 21-pound, 11-ounce fish caught in 2003 and also believed to be the same bass) was stressed by being out of the water so long, Dayberry said. They knew keeping it out of the water would have been the kiss of death for that big bass. They wanted to do minimal damage. And there was a lot to be said about their honesty. These are stand-up guys we've known since they were kids. They have a lot of heart.
