Fishing this spring is getting off to a strange start. Just last month, a woman caught (if you believe the video, which I'm not sure I do) a goldfish in Troost Lake. And the Missouri Department of Conservation announced today that a late-April fishing trip in the Lake of the Ozarks netted an even larger, more significant catch.
The MDC says Gene Swope and his two grandsons, Justin Swope and Garron Grass, were out snagging -- when you catch fish by hooking their flesh rather than through the mouth -- for paddlefish, when they felt an unusual pull. The anglers battled the aqua-beast for 35 minutes before they landed the behemoth: a 4-foot-8, 106-pound bighead carp. Yeah, that's a state record.
The previous Missouri record for a bighead carp bagged by snagging
or another "alternative method" was a measly 80 pounds. Unfortunately
for Swope and his grandkids, the fish won't count as a world record,
because the International Game Fish Association doesn't allow fish to
be caught by snagging. In Missouri only non-game fish, like bighead
carp, can be legally snagged. Their mutant fish trumps the IGFA record by 16 pounds.
The species is actually an
invasive variety that the MDC is trying to get rid of. In a department
statement announcing the whopper, Fisheries Programs Specialist Andrew
Branson said it's good to remove bighead carp from lakes, because they weren't supposed to be there in the first place. "This is an example of how invasive species can thrive outside of their
native environment and the importance of preventing their spread," he said. "At
least anglers are removing some of these from the lake, and that's good
news."
So it's a public service and a ton of fish dinners. Apparently bighead carp go great with radishes. Yum.
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