Record Bass, Again?

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Jim Matthews, ONS

12/3/04

The International Angler, the newsletter of the International Game Fish Association, reports that a 22 1/2-pound largemouth bass was caught and released from tiny Spring Lake near Santa Rosa in late August.

Did anyone hear about this? A world record class bass was caught and it wasn't on front pages of every bass publication in the nation? Amazing.

The IGFA says the fish was weighed on a hand scale and photographed before being released. This would, could be a new world record for Leah Trew of Santa Rosa, toppling George Perry's 1932 record catch of 22-pounds, four-ounces. But there is something deja vu in all this. Spring Lake is the same water where another Santa Rosa resident, Paul Duclos, caught a 24-poundish largemouth and released it after weighing it on a bathroom scale. His record application was denied. The same fish was reportedly caught by a fly-fisherman, photographed, and released before Duclos caught it.

Will someone at Spring Lake please keep that monster bass, conk it on the head, and weigh it on a certified scale. We can then scratch George Perry's name off the top of that list once and for all and have a world record fish fry.

 

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http://www.rodnreel.com/POTB/PicView.asp?PicID=32075
Just heard about it on WWL radio in New Orleans, there is a picture but not much info.
What they where saying is the fish was released after being weighed and may not quialify for the record book.


New World Record Bass?-Radio Photo
Submitted by: Outdoors with Don Dubuc on 12/5/2003
Picture ID: 32075

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Taken By: Unknown

This 22-8 bass was weighed on a certified scale and i.d.'ed by a California Fish & Wildlife Agency official. Will it break George Perry's 72 year-old world record 22-4? Hear the rest of the story Sat morning 5-7am CDT on the Outdoors with Don Dubuc Network. See ya on the radio!
Click Here for more information about Don Dubuc

 

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In fishing, catching a world-record largemouth bass would be like breaking Barry Bonds' home run record ... and worth its weight in gold. That's why Leaha Trew's claim that she caught the whopper of all time has created a ...

By Ed Zieralski, San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

December 7, 2003

Bass fishing's most prestigious and highly coveted record is being challenged by a very mysterious catch made quietly in the heat of August at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa.

Leaha Trew, 45, a self-employed landscape maintenance worker from Santa Rosa, reportedly caught and released a 22-pound, 8-ounce bass on Aug. 24 at Spring Lake, a 72-acre body of water in Spring Lake Regional Park.

If approved, Trew's catch could make her a millionaire from endorsements because it would break fishing's most treasured record, the famous 22-pound, 4-ounce bass caught by George W. Perry in Montgomery Lake in Georgia on June 2, 1932.

"We're talking about the Holy Grail of fishing records, a more than 71-year-old record here," said Doug Blodgett, world record administrator for the Florida-based International Game Fish Association.

But not so fast. There are questions. There are always questions about big bass catches.

"We're trying to get those questions answered," Blodgett said.

Leaha Trew has been mysteriously silent about the catch, helping keep the live well shut on what would have been the biggest story this side of the 21.7-pounder caught by Carlsbad's Jed Dickerson at Lake Dixon in May.

Unlike Dickerson's story, which was out in a matter of minutes, Trew's fish story went largely unreported for more than three months.

Blodgett received Trew's application for the potential record bass on Sept. 22. Since then, IGFA officials and trustees – members of the records confirmation committee – have been "investigating" the catch. News of the catch became official last weekend when members of the IGFA received their International Angler newsletter and saw the official report about the catch.

Since then, Leaha Trew's son, Javad, 21, who was with her when she caught it, has been her spokesman. Javad, a well-decorated big bass angler with records of his own, snapped the lone picture of the catch, taking it with the last shot from a disposable camera.

"My mom's just really nervous about talking about it and wants to wait until it becomes an official record," Javad Trew said.

Javad Trew said his mother caught the 22-8 bass on a bass-patterned, Storm Wild Eye Swim Bait on 12-pound test line. They weighed the bass (apparently in the presence of one other witness), measured it, took a picture of it and then released it.

Javad Trew said they didn't think the catch was the catch of a lifetime because they thought Paul Duclos had the all-tackle world record at 24 pounds, also caught and released at Spring Lake back in March of 1997.

But Duclos used his bathroom scale to arrive at the fish's weight, first by stepping on the scale without the fish, and then by climbing back on the scale with the wet lunker in his arms.

Duclos subtracted the difference of the two weights to get his much-disputed 24 pounds of fame that quickly went to lame.

"We still have the scale Duclos used in our warehouse," said the IGFA's Blodgett.

The bass fishing community protects Perry's record the way some once guarded Babe Ruth's mark of 60 home runs. Anyone even flirting with Perry's record sees his or her catch and life put in an aquarium for all to see.

The Trews' handling of this catch is being scrutinized as much or more as Duclos' catch.

Blodgett said Trew's application for the world record didn't raise any "red flags" when it was received, but he said the fact that Trew submitted one picture has raised a lot of questions among the committee members.

IGFA rules stipulate photographs should show the "full length of the fish, the rod and reel used to make the catch, and the scale used to weigh the fish must accompany each record application." Also a ruler or tape measure should be set alongside the fish to give those judging it a reference for size.

"There's nothing to give us a sense of its size," Blodgett said.

Blodgett said the BogaGrip scale that Trew used to weigh the fish was certified by the IGFA before the catch. Javad Trew sent the scale, which only weighs in increments of half pounds, to the IGFA for certification.

The fish actually recorded between 22-½ pounds and 23 pounds, so it actually weighed more than 22 pounds, 8 ounces. But the IGFA demands the lower weight of the BogaGrip be used.

It appears the Trews had the right scale, just not the right camera or knowledge of what to do with such a catch.

"We just weren't prepared," Javad Trew said.

IGFA officials find it hard to believe that Javad Trew wasn't ready to catch the world record bass.

His 30-inch long largemouth bass is tied with two other anglers for the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame's all-tackle record for largemouth bass that were caught and released. And he owns the 6-pound caught-and-release mark with a 28-inch bass and the 12-pound mark with the 30-inch bass. And he also has 2-pound line-class record for a 35-inch blue catfish.

Trew said his mother's previous best bass was a 16-pounder. Javad Trew's also reports an 18-pound, 8-ounce largemouth he caught Sept. 1, eight days after his mother caught and released the 22-8. He submitted that catch to the IGFA for consideration as a record for 4-pound test line.

Seeing Javad Trew's pattern of record-setting fish and desire for record consideration and recognition, IGFA officials believe Javad Trew should have known better.

"Bass fishing is what he does, big bass fishing for that matter, and he doesn't turn to the page in our book that pertains to big bass to see what the record is before he fishes?" asked IGFA president Michael Leech, one of the committee members judging the catch.

Leech and B.A.S.S. founder Ray Scott, two members of the committee looking at Trew's catch, have checked in with their doubts about the catch.

"There are a lot of very strange things about this catch," Leech said, all but sounding the death knell to it. "It's not as though I can point to a smoking gun, but it's just so poorly documented. That's the big issue."

As the IGFA investigates, the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame, another organization that maintains catch records, made the catch its record for 12-pound test line, but stopped short of naming it the all-tackle record over Perry's bass.

Ted Dzialo, executive director of the Wisconsin-based National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame, said Hall of Fame officials must see the dead bass before recognizing it as the world record.

"We would have to examine the insides of the fish to make sure no weights were added or nothing else was done to the fish," Dzialo said. "We made it the unofficial world record because there is no reason, as far as we're concerned, to doubt these people's integrity."

The IGFA is expected to announce its decision as soon as it gets one more letter (of approval or disapproval) from the lone remaining committee member.

Should the IGFA not approve the bass, Leaha Trew will be denied the fame and fortune that would have accompanied such a significant and historic catch.

She'd lose out, no doubt, and so would her son. So would fishing, although there's nothing like a catch like this to stir big bass fever into a full-blown bass flu.

But the real loser might be Spring Lake. The tiny Northern California fishery has kicked out two potential world-record bass. But all it may have to show for it after this is a stinky bathroom scale in the IGFA's warehouse and one lonely picture that didn't tell the story, much less 1,000 words.