Approximately two miles from this spot, on June 2, 1932, 19-year-old farm boy George W. Perry caught what was to become America’s most famous fish. The twenty-two-pound four-ounce largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoldes) exceeded the existing record by more than two pounds and retained the world record for more than fifty years. Perry and his friend J.E. Page were fishing in Montgomery Lake, a slough off the Ocmulgee River, not for trophies but to bring food to the table during the Great Depression. The fish was caught on a Creek Chub Perch Scale Wigglefish, Perry’s only lure, and measured 32 1/2 inches in length and 28 1/2 inches in girth. Its weight and measurements were taken, recorded, and notarized in Helena, Georgia, and Perry’s only reward was seventy-five dollars in merchandise as first prize in Field and Stream Magazine’s fishing contest. The longstanding record was one reason the largemouth bass was made Georgia’s Official State Fish. Montgomery Lake is now part of the Department of Natural Resources’ Horse Creek Wildlife Management Area.