iStockphoto / Sablin / Nosyrevy
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) has announced that angler George Chance has set a new fishing world record when he reeled in a massive 97-pound bighead carp out of the mighty Mississippi River.
Chance was bottom fishing for catfish when he hooked up with his new bighead carp world record-setting fish and after battling it for around 20 minutes he knew the fish was huge but he estimated it to weigh 50 to 60 pounds. It wasn’t until he took the invasive carp to a local recycling center to have it weighed that it really dawned on him he’d caught a record-setting fish.
The previous IGFA fishing world record for bighead carp was a 90-pound, 0-ounce fish caught out of Guntersville Lake in Tennessee by angler Jeffrey Rorex back in 2005. It is interesting that the two most recent fishing world records for this species were both fish caught in North America when the species is nonnative and considered invasive in North America.
Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC)
Obviously, due to this being a new fishing world record is also a Missouri state fishing record, beating the previous state record by a whopping 17 pounds. That previous record was an 80-pound bighead carp caught on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks back in 2004.
What Happened To The New Bighead Carp World Record?
In a press release, the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reiterated that they encourage all anglers to harvest and remove any bighead carp from the state’s waters if caught. They are a fish species native eastern Asia from Russia to China and this particular fish was “full of eggs” and would have likely spawned this Spring.
Angler George Chance knows this and did his duty in helping remove the invasive species from the river. He told the MDC what he did with the fish, saying “I chopped up the fish and put it in my garden. I’m going to eat it in the form of tomatoes and cucumbers.”
Brilliant. He found a way to not only catch a new bighead carp world record fish but also use that fish to improve the health of his garden. Well done.
Interestingly, a 109-pound bighead carp was caught in Illinois last June. But the fish was caught by a commercial angler and thus was not eligible for a world record as it wasn’t caught using a rod and reel.
It has been a hot month (so far) for fishing world records. George Chance caught his bighead carp on March 19 and this new world record paddlefish was caught in Oklahoma last week.