Tom and Leroy: A Love Story

Tom Mann is a legendary figure in the world of fishing.  He was a top tournament angler, wildly successful and innovative lure-maker, and beloved television personality.  However, what interests me about the estimable Mr. Mann is that he was also impresario for a fish named Leroy who became the pride of Eufaula, Alabama.

Our shining moment in Fish History began one day in 1973.  While Mann was fishing in Lake Eufaula, he happened to catch a bass.  It was a hard-fought battle.  Mann’s daughter Sharon recalled that “Leroy weighed less than 2 pounds, but fought hard because he was a king and knew it.”  The moment their eyes met, Mann realized he was looking at no ordinary marine life.  The bass just radiated that certain something.  It was a fish with “It.”  The instantly enamored Mann not only spared the bass’ life, he gave it a starring role in his largest aquarium at his fishing museum/tourist attraction, Tom Mann’s Fish World.

The bass was not only markedly intelligent, he was so mean and feisty that Mann named him “Leroy Brown,” after the famous Jim Croce song.  For years, Leroy entertained visitors by chasing away other, lesser fish, eating the bait that pleased him, contemptuously swatting away the ones that didn’t, jumping through a hoop held over the aquarium’s surface, and generally displaying his macho Fish Charisma.  (A side note: After being captured, Leroy not only never went near anything resembling a fish hook, he taught the other aquarium fish to avoid them, as well, thus hampering Mann's ability to test which lures were most effective.) Leroy eventually reached the impressive weight of seven pounds.  (Male bass generally reach only half that size.)  Leroy was also a ladies’ man, uh, fish.  He had several girlfriends, and fathered untold millions of offspring, but the love of his life was his 12-pound tankmate, Big Bertha.  Until Bertha’s death, the two fish were inseparable.  As Bertha was dying, Leroy stayed by her side, continually trying to “bump” life back into her.

Sadly, in August 1980, Leroy joined Bertha in that Great Fish Tank In The Sky.  Mann was desolate.  He told reporter Bryan Brasher, “It felt like I had lost a family member.  It just tore my heart out, and a lot of people felt the same way.  He was a town favorite, a worldwide favorite.  There had been stories written about him in other countries.”

Naturally, such an ornament to the piscine world deserved a lavish funeral.  Mann spent $4,000 on a customized headstone, and a satin-lined tackle box was prepared for the dead hero.  (It also contained a sample of Leroy’s favorite food, strawberry jelly worms.)  

"Allentown Morning Call," March 24, 1981, via Newspapers.com

Leroy’s memorial service was attended by some 800 people.  It was a lovely and touching ceremony.  Fishing celebrities extolled the dead bass’ many virtues.  The Eufaula High School marching band played (of course) “Bad Bad Leroy Brown.”  The Governor of Alabama declared a Day of Mourning.

However, on the day Mann had set aside for Leroy’s actual burial, it was too wet and muddy for a proper interment, so Mann temporarily placed the casket containing Leroy’s body in a freezer at Fish World.  And it was almost immediately stolen.  The kidnappers left behind a ransom note demanding one million jelly worms.

It was never learned who committed this outrage, but weeks later Leroy’s casket was eventually found in the baggage claim of Tulsa Airport.  (By this time, Leroy’s corpse was easy to sniff out.)  Sources differ on whether Leroy was repatriated back to Alabama, or if his aromatic remains got a less-than-dignified end in the nearest trash bin.  In either case, Leroy’s impressive monument, bearing the words, “Most bass are just fish.  But Leroy Brown was something special,” still remains in a place of honor on Eufaula’s Main Street.

"Dothan Eagle," November 25, 2002

Mann died in 2005, and his Fish World is also no more, but the memories of Tom and Leroy still vividly remain as a classic fish story.