The Sixteen Pound Bass

 

    In my library there is a volume of Field & Stream maga­zine, in a hardbound cover, from April of 1918 to April of 1919. In these old mag­azines there is some very in­teresting reading, much of it by the great outdoorsman, Zane Grey, remembered for his famed western book. Indeed there is a great deal of difference in the way we hunt and fish today, but some things were much the same back then, in the thick of World War I.

    For instance, Field & Stream held a fishing contest, offering a host of outdoor equipment prizes in various categories. One entry drew more space in the magazine than any other topic but the war. It was a 16-pound smallmouth bass caught by George T. Magraw, M.D.Magraw wrote an elaborate account of the hooking and landing of his fish, and in­cluded a photo that nearly any­one would instantly take for a phony today. Apparently they were less skeptical in that day.

    The fish was said to be taken from a small one-acre lake near Avondale, Pa. Ma­graw claimed it took him one hour and 20 minutes to land the fish and that he had 175 yards of line out at one time. Field & Stream was very trusting, but they sent a repre­sentative to talk to Magraw and see the lake. He found the doctor of high repute in the community, and even com­mented that he never passed a dog on the street without a pat on the head.

    The writer talked to several men who signed affidavits naming them as witnesses to a smallmouth 36-inches long and 26 ¾ inches in girth. Before he left, however, the representative took note that the kitchen wall which was a background for the picture had boards four inches in width. Comparing those measurements with the picture, it showed the fish length would be only about 20 inches. Something was fishy, so Field and Stream asked for the photo negatives. Dr. Magraw became indignant, and stated that the negatives had been sent out of town and could not be recovered. He had, of course, eaten the fish, causing another hint of suspicion.

    Field and Stream went to work on the available picture with an architectural expert who examined the shadows and made elaborate calculations placing the size of the bass at less than 24 inches, and most likely less than 20. By then there was a considerable del­uge of mail from readers, nearly 100 percent against the doctor's claim. One reader said it was impossible for a fish to play out 175 feet of line in a pond of one acre size un­less he wound it around his body a few hundred times.

    Magraw replied that he was being made to look like a liar even after affidavits proved him a respected and truthful man. One of Field & Stream's writ­ers was a judge for the contest, and he wrote consistently about catching bass on artifi­cial baits and floating flies. When he questioned the fish fighting for an hour and 20 minutes, Magraw replied that the fish was taken on a minnow and “did not have a lot of cork and feathers rammed down her throat to drown her in 15 or 20 minutes.”

    The examinations of the photo, and explanations concerning the length of the bass which more or less proved it to be a hoax, took up four or five magazine pages in three issues, and became so involved and complex most outdoorsmen would have trouble figuring any of it out. Afterwards, the magazine gave Magraw 30 days to dispute the findings, and he did, with mathematical equations and drawings that were so confusing they could hardly be disproven.

    The good doctor wanted that record badly and he sent another picture. This time is was obviously a smaller bass blown up and laid over the top of a picture of Magraw. Even if you stretched your imagination you could not accept it, a smallmouth hanging from a man's waist, extending past his feet.

    Magraw stated that he had little faith in winning the prize because the judges were in the class of mules, and if you "con­vinced a mule of something against his will, he will likely remain of the same opinion." The editor finally took his gloves off, called the new picture an unspeakable fake. The matter was closed for good in the December issues of 1918, after nine months of study and debate by a half dozen experts.

    If the record had been allowed, and it might have been considering sworn, notarized affidavits from respectable men, then today’s 11-pound record brownie taken from Dale Hollow Lake in Kentucky would seem less of a phenomenon.

    It is hard to figure why a prize of a steel rod and reel would cause a man who was said to be upstanding and honest, to stretch things so far. It goes to show…fishermen have never really changed much.