The largemouth bass is the most popular gamefish in North America, as it can be found in the warmest waters of almost every state. Its appeal has grown so astronomically in the last ten years that thousands of bass-fishing clubs have sprung up, and are swamped with new members. According to the sporting-goods industry, more millions of dollars are spent to catch largemouth bass than are spent on any other outdoor activity in the United States. Bass magazines promote the species as the workingman's fish, available to anyone within strolling distance of a lake, river, culvert, reservoir, rockpit, or drainage ditch. The bass is not picky; it is hardy, prolific, and on a given day will eat just about any God-awful lure dragged in front of its maw. As a fighter it is bullish, but tires easily; as a jumper its skills are admirable, though no match for a graceful rainbow trout or tarpon; as table fare it is blandly acceptable, even tasty when properly seasoned. Its astonishing popularity comes from a modest combination of these traits, plus the simple fact that there are so many largemouth bass swimming around that just about any damn fool can catch one.

Its democratic nature makes the bass an ideal tournament fish, and a marketing dream-come-true for the tackle industry. Because a large-mouth in Seattle is no different from its Everglades cousin, expensive bass-fishing products need no regionalization, no tailored advertising. This is why hard-core bass fishermen everywhere are outfitted exactly the same, from their trucks to their togs to their tackle. On any body of water, in any county rural or urban, the uniform and arsenal of the bassing fraternity are unmistakable. The universal mission is to catch one of those freakishly big bass known as lunkers or hawgs. In many parts of the country, any fish over five pounds is considered a trophy, and it is not uncommon for the ardent basser to have three or four such specimens mounted on the walls of his home; one for the living room, one for the den, and so on. The geographic range of truly gargantuan fish, ten to fifteen pounds, is limited to the humid Deep South, particularly Georgia and Florida. In these areas the quest for the world's biggest bass is rabid and ruthless; for tournament fishermen this is the big leagues, where top prize money for a two-day event might equal seventy-five thousand dollars. If the weather on these days happens to be rotten or the water too cold, a dinky four-pound bass might win the whole shooting match. More than likely, though, it takes a lunker fish to win the major tournaments, and few anglers are capable of catching lunkers day in and day out.

Weekend anglers are fond of noting that the largest bass ever caught was not landed by a tournament fisherman. It was taken by a nineteen-year-old Georgia farm kid named George W. Perry at an oxbow slough called Montgomery Lake. Fittingly, young Perry had never heard of Lowrance fish-finders or Thruster trolling motors or Fenwick graphite flipping sticks. Perry went out fishing in a simple rowboat and took the only bass lure he owned, a beat-up Creek Chub. He went fishing mainly because his family was hungry, and he returned with a largemouth bass that weighed twenty-two pounds, four ounces. The year was 1932. Since then, despite all the space-age advancements in fish-catching technology, nobody has boated a bass that comes close to the size of George Perry's trophy, which he and his loved ones promptly ate for dinner. Today an historical plaque commemorating this leviathan largemouth stands on Highway 117, near Lumber City, Georgia. It serves as a defiant and nagging challenge to modern bass fishermen and all their infernal electronics. Some ichthyologists have been so bold as to suggest that the Monster of Montgomery Lake was a supremely mutant fish, an all-tackle record that will never be bested by any angler. To which Dickie Lockhart, in closing each segment of Fish Fever,would scrunch up his eyes, wave a finger at the camera, and decree: "George Perry, next week your cracker butt is history!"

There was no tournament that weekend, so Dickie Lockhart was taping a show. He was shooting on Lake Kissimmee, not far from Disney World. The title of this particular episode was "Hawg Hunting." Dickie needed a bass over ten pounds; anything less wasn't a hawg.

As always, he used two boats; one to fish from, one for the film crew. Like most TV fishing-show hosts, Dickie Lockhart used videotapes because they were cheaper than sixteen-millimeter, and reusable. Film was unthinkable for a bass show because you might go two or three days shooting nothing but men casting their lures and spitting tobacco, but no fish. With the video, a bad day didn't blow the whole budget because you just backed it up and shot again.

Dickie Lockhart had been catching bass all morning, little two-and three-pounders. He could guess the weight as soon as he hooked up, then furiously skitter the poor fish across the surface into the boat. "Goddammit," he would shout, "rewind that sucker and let's try again."

During lulls in the action, Dickie would grow tense and foul-mouthed. "Come on, you bucket-mouthed bastards," he'd growl as he cast at the shoreline, "hit this thing or I'm bringing dynamite tomorrow, y'hear?"

Midmorning the wind kicked up, mussing Dickie Lockhart's shiny black hair. "Goddammit," he shouted, "stop the tape." After he got a comb from his tacklebox and slicked himself down, he ordered the cameraman to crank it up again.

"How do I look?" Dickie asked.

"Like a champ," the cameraman said thinly. The cameraman dreamed of the day when Dickie Lockhart would get shitfaced drunk and drop his drawers to moon his little ole fishing pals all across America. Then Dickie would fall out of the boat, as he often did after drinking. Afterward the cameraman would pretend to rewind the videotape and erase this sloppy moment, but of course he wouldn't. He'd save it and, when the time was right, threaten to send it to the sports-and-religion network that syndicated Dickie Lockhart's fishing show. Dickie would suddenly become a generous fellow, and the cameraman would finally be able to afford to take his wife to the Virgin Islands.

Now, with the tape rolling, Dickie Lockhart was talking man-to-man with the serious bass angler back home. Dickie's TV accent was much thicker and gooier than his real-life accent, an exaggeration that was necessary to meet the demographic of the show, which was basically male Deep Southern grit-suckers. As he cast his lure and reeled it in, Dickie Lockhart would confide exactly what brand of crankbait he was using, what pound line was on the reel, what kind of sunglasses (amber or green) worked better on a bright day. The patter carried an air of informality and friendliness, when in fact the point was to shill as many of Dickie Lockhart's sponsors' products as possible in twenty-four minutes of live tape. The crankbait was made by Bagley, the line by Du Pont, the reel by Shimano, the sunglasses by Polaroid, and so on. Somehow, when Dickie stared into the camera and dropped these bald-faced plugs, it didn't seem so cheap.

At about noon a third bass boat raced up to the fishing spot, and Dickie started hollering like a madman. "Goddammit, stop the tape! Stop the tape!" He hopped up and down on the bow and shook his fist at the man in the other boat. "Hey, can't you see we're filming a goddamn TV show here? You got the whole frigging lake but you gotta stop here and wreck the tape!" Then he saw that the other angler was Ozzie Rundell, Culver's brother, so Dickie stopped shouting. He didn't apologize, but he did pipe down.

"Didn't mean to interrupt," Ozzie said. He was a mumbler. Dickie Lockhart told him to speak up.

"Didn't mean to interrupt!" Ozzie said, a bit louder. In his entire life he had never boated a bass over four pounds, and was in awe of Dickie Lockhart.