Secret Fly Broke George Perry Bass Record "Multiple Times"

PERHAPS YOU’VE HEARD of the George Perry bass record. More than seventy-five years ago, Perry caught a 22-pound, 4-ounce fish on a Fintail Shiner lure made by the Creek Chubb Bait Company. His fish — landed prior to the existence of the IGFA but recorded by Field & Stream as a world record — has become mythical in stature, inspiring tens of thousands of bass anglers to try and catch a larger fish, and even becoming the subject of a best-selling book.
Even we’ve been bitten by the bug. Last summer we did a round trip of some popular south Georgia bass sloughs, throwing hair bugs, poppers, clousers and bunny-fur leeches and having a whale of a time watching big and small bass try and commit suicide over a variety of flies. Along the way, we stopped to buy some bug spray in the tiny town of Crayville and were astonished to find that almost all the local fishermen used fly rods. Casual questioning produced the surprising reason: rumors of a secret fly that had broken Perry’s bass record not once, but many times, and that had even thrown long-time friendships and family loyalties into question. The fly, we heard, was about to be the subject of a court case.
Recently Scott Bowen agreed to go to south Georgia for MidCurrent and look further into the story. What he found surprised us, startled us, and confirmed what we had always suspected: that the right flies will out-fish hard-body lures, jerkbaits and even live minnows when it comes to the very biggest warmwater fish.
Read the full story in “Operation Quittman.”