Did Japanese angler hook holy grail?
It’s a long, long way from the southern California lakes that were supposed to kick out the next world-record largemouth bass. And it’s a long, long way from the native waters of the largemouth bass – the southeast and midwest of the United States. But the lake near Kyoto, Japan, is where Manabu Kurita trolled a live bluegill through a canal, hooked and landed a 22-pound, 4-ounce largemouth bass on July 2. That fish may tie the 77-year-old world-record largemouth bass. This is huge news for bass anglers all over the planet. Largemouth and smallmouth bass evolved in the United States, but they’ve been stocked all over the world. Rabid anglers cast lures for largemouth bass in Japan, Mexico, Cuba, parts of Europe, South Africa and even the Philippines. Bass angling is a billion-dollar business in the United States, and the fish are popular with anglers wherever they’ve been stocked. It’s been speculated for years that landing a world-record fish would be worth millions of dollars to the
