Is this a photo of George Perry’s world record largemouth bass?
Summer 2026
By Jimmy Jacobs
(Editor’s note: Jimmy Jacobs was the editor of Georgia Sportsma from 1989 to 2014.)
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the morning of Friday, November 19, 2004. Over a cup of coffee, I began sorting through the last of the pile of recently delivered mail. As usual, the envelopes addressed to the “Georgia Camera Corner” section of Georgia Sportsman Magazine had been set aside and were the last ones opened.
I knew that those never threatened to create problems for the rest of the day; rather they often provided some entertainment as I browsed the photos of trophy bucks or big fish that readers submitted.
When I opened the one from Jerry Johnson postmarked from Waycross, however, a long chain of events was set in motion that just may have solved on of angling’s longstanding mysteries. Inside was a photograph of a man and boy n front of what appeared to be a couple of palmetto palms. The black-and-white photo and the subjects obviously harkened back to a past era. Framed between the two individuals was largemouth bass of eye-popping proportions!
The mystery photo. Courtesy of Jerry Johnson.
Reading the accompanying letter from Mr. Johnson provided scant background on the enormous fish. He had found the photo among a collection of pictures inherited from a deceased aunt. Unfortunately, there was no indication as to the identity of the people in the picture, or to where it was taken. Jerry simply wanted some help in estimating the size of the fish.
Needless to say, I was immediately on the phone calling information to find a number for Jerry Johnson in Waycross. Tracking him down, I discovered that his aunt was Mildred Johnson, who had died in the late 1980s in Bacon County. Other than that, Jerry could provide no other details about the photo.
Some telephone and online investigation of the Johnson family and Bacon County area turned up nothing, and because of interruptions, months passed without any further details coming to light. Finally, as an act of desperation, we ran the photo in the July 2005 “Georgia In The Field” column with a plea for any additional information that any of our readers might be able to provide.
Once published, the photo sparked a good bit of interest, but no one came forward who could identify the man and boy pictured. Which isn’t to say that I wasn’t contacted about the photograph. Almost immediately a call came in from Adrian Gray at the International Game Fish Association down in Dania, Florida, wanting to know if we had gotten any new information. Upon hearing we hadn’t, she requested permission to run the photo in their newsletter, The International Angler. We gave our blessing, and it ran in the September/October edition in 2005.
When that publication went out in mid-September, the next call came from Phil Chapman, the resident guru of giant bass for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Again, he wanted to know if new details had arisen. But he also pointed out that he had photos of Florida’s uncertified state-record bass that weighed 20.13 pounds and was caught in May 1923 by Fredrick Friebel. The bass in our mystery photo dwarfed that largemouth!
Jerry Johnson’s original note to Georgia Sportsman.
As it turned out, an even more important call came in a week later: Lee Howard, a guide for Upper Hi Fly Fishing & Outfitters up in Hiawassee and an IGFA member, has seen the photo in the organization’s newsletter. Like the other callers, his request was for any additional information that had come to light.
Our discussion ended with speculation about the possibility that the picture could be of George W. Perry and his world-record largemouth. After all, that fish had been caught in the same general area of the Peach State in which this photo surfaced. Rather than becoming dejected at the news that no new details were available, Howard instead found that the lack of development lit a fire under him.
The first thing Howard set out to do was see if a genealogical connection could be made between the families of Jerry and Mildred Johnson and that of George W. Perry. The task would be daunting.
In 1932 George Perry, then 20 years old, was farming in Telfair Couty. On Jue 2, recent rains having left his fields too soggy to work, he and older friend named Jack Page headed to Montgomery Lake, an oxbow off the Ocmulgee River, to do some fishing.
The area was undoubtedly off the beaten path almost a century ago. Today it still requires several miles of driving on sandy, washboard roads through the present Horse Creek Wildlife Management Area and a half-mile walk to reach the old boat landing on the lake.
The 2006 sign at the old boat landing on Montgomery Lake. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
Owing to drought condition in the fall of 2006, the lakebed was virtually empty, presenting a panorama of cypress trees and surrounding knees standing high and dry. Gazing out beneath the canopy at the eerily still lake site with the stagnant puddle in the middle, one could but wonder: Exactly where in this scene did Perry cast his Creek Chub Fintail Shiner lure?
That was the only lure his family owned, but it was enough. It was inhaled by a legend – a 22-pound, 4-ounce largemouth bass that has reigned as the world record up until the present.
During the ensuing years, however, no actual photograph of the fish had ever been discovered: in fact, commonly accepted lore said such a picture did not exist. George Perry had spent his adult life in Brunswick and died in a 1974 airplane crash near Birmingham, having never produced such a photo.
Upon first seeing the mystery photo, Lee Howard had made some quick calculations based on other items in the picture, such as the likely length of the forearm of a 4- or 5-year-old boy. That convinced him the fish was of world-record proportions. Could this be a picture of Perry’s fabled catch? The first step would be connecting the two South Georgia families.
Fortunately, Howard had a couple of proverbial aces up his sleeve. Among his acquaintances was Bill Baab, retired outdoor editor of the Augusta Chronicle and acknowledged as the foremost expert on the Perry bass. Baab, who had first met George Perry in 1959, is in his 90s today and a veritable walking treasure trove of details on the man and the fish.
Also, a fellow walked into the Upper Hi Fly shop on the shores of Lake Chatuge several decades back and, while admiring a mount of a 16-pound largemouth that Howard caught down in Florida, the stranger commented that his dad had taken one a lot bigger. The man turned out to be George L. “Dazy” Perry, the son of the world record holder and then a resident of Hiawassee.
For Dazy Perry, the story of his dad’s feat was a family tradition from a time before he was born. But his first reaction upon seeing the photo was that the man in it could have been his father. That hope faded, however, when he noticed the cigarette in the man’s lips – George W. Perry never smoked.
Undaunted, Howard joined an Internet genealogical website and began the search. That led to David E. Johnson, who was also searching for details on the Perry family of Telfair County. David’s grandfather was James Bowen Perry, who was George Perry’s brother. From there the trail through the Johnson family let to Mildred Johnson of Bacon County. The connection was made!
Two problems remained at this point. Who were the folks in the photo and why was their no record of the photo having been taken? The second of these questions had already been solved, it just required Lee Howard’s making the right contact. That came through Bill Baab.
Baab’s heir apparent as keeper of the torch for the Perry story is Ken Duke, who was then the senior editor of B.A.S.S Publications. When Howard contacted him through Baab, he discovered that Duke had a letter in his possession that had turned up in 2003 that was sent from George Perry to the Creek Chub Bait Company in Garrett, Indiana and dated June 3, 1935. In the letter Perry stated that he had sent the company a poor-quality photo of the world-record fish and offered to send them a better one of him and the bass. Apparently, more than one picture had been taken of this phantom of the angling world!
Indeed, contrary to commonly accepted knowledge, Dazy Perry pointed out that it had been known in his family circle for years that photos were made of the fish – because his aunt, the former Lelia Mae Walden, who married James Bowen Perry, had shot some. Later her daughter married into the Johnson family, which could explain how Mildred Johnson ended up with the mystery photograph.
For Howard, the hunt was now getting exciting. He next had the photo run in The Telfair Enterprise newspaper for a couple of weeks in the Helena area, where the bass was weighed at the post office the day it was caught.
The only response that Howard received was from an octogenarian lady who remembered the little boy, but not his name. She also indicated that he died as a child, presenting an apparent dead end.
Speculation about the identity of the man in the photo centered on the elusive Jack E. Page, Perry’s fishing partner. Lee Howard could find no evidence of a Page family in Telfair County, but most of records were destroyed in a 1934 courthouse fire. He eventually did find a local cemetery with Page graves, but not that of Jack. The shadowy Jack Page seemed simply to have vanished from the region, leaving no trail to be followed.
The palmetto trees on the grounds of the Helena post office in w=2006. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
One final alluring tidbit did surface later. The current post office building in Helena stands on the spot that its predecessor occupied in 1932. When Dazy Perry accompanied a film crew to the location while they worked on a documentary about the famous largemouth, they discovered a pair of palmetto palms on the grounds of the post office that are spaced in a manner very similar to that in the photo. Those trees are much fuller today, but the species does not grow very tall and they could be the trees in the picture.
So, is this a photograph of Jack Page or someone else holding George Washington Perry’s world-record largemouth? Some very knowledgeable folks seem pretty convinced.
“I’m 99.99 to 100 percent convinced it’s the fish,” Bill Baab offered. “The photo was probably one of many shot that day. It was Helena with its small-town atmosphere, and I’m sure when they brought the fish in, everybody came out with their Brownie cameras.”
As for Dazy Perry, there is little doubt in his mind.
“I’m convinced, yes,” he stated emphatically. “Family records and those two palm trees prove the connection.”
Some are less convinced, but still apparent believers.
“That’s a tough question,” Ken Duke said. “It’s as likely to be as not. There is just so much conflicting evidence. I don’t know what to make of it.
“If I had to bet,” he finally admitted, “it’s the fish.”
Both Jerry Johson and Lee Howard mirror a rather pragmatic view of the situation. In Howard’s case he entered the quest as a skeptic, expecting to find some other explanation for the photo.
“I’m comfortable enough to say I’m 99 percent sure that this is the fish,” he now concedes. “But there are just too many things we can’t prove. All I can say is it was a big fish.”
“My reaction is typical of any bass fisherman,” Jerry Johnson chimed in. “It is awesome to know that there is a picture. I wish we could pin it down 100 percent, but it looks like we can’t after all these years.”
The historic marker on Georgia Highway 117 at Horse Creek Wildlife Management Area. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
As Lee Howard summed it up, probably the only way that can happen is for some relative of Jack Page to appear who can fill in the gaps in the story.
Jimmy Jacobs is the editor of Georgia Outdoor Adventures, as well as being editor/publisher of On The Fly South. He also is a member of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. He makes his home in Marietta with his English setters, Luke and Lulu. He can be contacted at jimmyjacobs970@gmail.com.