I know fishermen can lie but the 26 3\4 inches long small mouth is not unheared of. I WITNESSED THIS In a fishers of men tournament held on Lake cumberland in May of 2003 a small mouth that measured 27 1\8 inches long was weighed in.MEASURED at the scales because it was a log !!!!! But since the female had just spawned the fish ONLY weighed 4.98 lbs!!!!
ALSO during one of the weekly Friday night tourneys out of burnside this summer, a smallmouth measureing 26 1\2 was weighed in. It weighed 6.2 but later the scales were check and they were off by 10 ounces. The best part of it was that the team had 2 brown fish that weighed almost 12 lbs on those scales.(11.89)