The International Game Fish Association announced today that 32-year-old Manabu Kurita, a Japanese angler, has officially tied one of the most sacred records in sports: George Perry’s 22-pound, 4-ounce world record largemouth bass, caught in Georgia in 1932.It’s immense reports in the compulsive, hyper-competitive world of largemouth bass record-chasers. Bass are America’s fish; bass fishing is an American pastime. It will stir up some talk that Kurita hooked his lunker in Lake Biwa, Japan. But the fact that a foreigner now shares the record with George Perry shouldn’t be a cause of consternation, like the loss by United States basketball Dream Team in the 2004 Olympics. Kurita's catch should instead be celebrated: bass fishing has truly gone global. Foreigners are as obsessed with bass fishing as we are.
And anyway, it’s not like all of the record chasers out there are going to hang up their rods. If anything, this will only make them try harder in their quest for sowbelly.
