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Tell me, is this good? Last week, Oklahoma angler Gabe Brannick set out with High Water Guide Service to fish for some paddlefish on the Neosho River. However, this guided trip quickly turned into one Brannick will never forget… Because he reeled in a MASSIVE 110.1 pound bighead carp, which ordinarily would be good enough to earn him an IGFA world record, however, because he snagged it while looking for paddlefish, it won’t count. The world record doesn’t recognize snagging as a method of catch according to Field & Stream. And on top of that, he blew the previous record...

The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 sent shock waves through state agencies. The following year, in 1963, the Arkansas branch of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife (which later became the US Fish and Wildlife Service) imported grass carp as an organic treatment for catfish ponds. Carp, with their voracious appetites for plankton, were a chemical-free filter. When the approach proved successful, additional species — black, silver, and bighead carp — were brought from Vietnam and Malaysia, and later from China and Russia as well. Without differentiating among the species, agencies like the US Department of...

The fish may have been accidentally dumped into the lagoon 20 years ago, one expert said. But unlike Chance the Snapper, who experts quickly determined was an illegal pet released into the pond, Knize’s catch raises environmental questions: How did an enormous carp — an invasive species — get into the manmade lagoon? And what does its presence mean for the urban pond and vulnerable Lake Michigan? Knize and his neighbor fought to get the beast out of the water, maneuvering it toward them as it tried to swim away. After 30 minutes of wrangling, they finally got it to...

“I wash fishing for bass,” the Chicago angler admits. But what he first thought was a huge catfish turned out to be a record-breaking carp. “I was fishing for bass,” Knize admits. “It started running and it was running clearly faster than a big turtle. So I thought it might be a 50-pound catfish.” The resulting catch – one of many invasive carp – is nothing short of flabbergasting. Cory Gecht took the mammoth fish to his larger – but still uncertified scale – where the carp weighed in at an astounding 74 pounds. As for it’s sheer size, the...

Lino Jubilado has been fly fishing in the Los Angeles River for over 40 years. Though most LA residents view the river as a polluted eyesore, to Lino, it’s a slice of nature’s paradise hidden within a big, bustling city. Amongst the trash and the concrete, Lino fly fishes for carp, bass and bluegill. But it’s the joy of catching carp that keeps Lino coming back to the river several times a week. Lino doesn’t usually eat the carp he catches from the LA River, but today is unusual.

EDDYVILLE — The War on Carp continues in Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has secured some $25 million for that purpose. The funding was renewed, matching the same amount in the federal government’s budget of the previous year, all according to Lyon County Judge-executive Wade White’s recent post on the War on Carp Facebook page. These funds supplement an additional $45 million through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which will aim at barriers and other ways to stop the movement of carp, White noted in...

A woman in her 20s reportedly lost all of her toenails after allegedly getting a so-called “fish pedicure,” a treatment touted by many as rejuvenating for a person’s feet. The toothless carp fish – which are plant eaters – voraciously feast on dead human skin. The woman’s toenails will likely return, but it will take a long time as nails only grow about one millimeter a month on average, Lipner said.

HOW TINY BATH ON THE ILLINOIS RIVER TURNED AN INVASIVE-SPECIES INTO A NATIONAL TOURNAMENT By Becca Fanning, Video by Austin Keating and Becca Fanning, Aug. 23, 2017 – Randy Stockham turned the throttle, his left arm braced as he dodged an airborne fish and steered around a fallen tree to catch the lead boat. With 10 minutes left in the first heat of this year’s Redneck Fishing Tournament, his team was on track to bring home the gold. In the boat, Stockham’s crew worked in sync, knees bent and nets in the air as hundreds of Asian carp leapt from...

Faced with the threat that Asian carp could enter the Great Lakes, Michigan is turning to the public for new ideas and plans to offer a prize to whoever comes up with a way to stop the voracious fish. Michigan's global search challenge comes after the U.S. government and others have spent hundreds of millions searching for a solution to stop the carp from entering the world's largest freshwater system. If they aren't stopped, officials fear the aggressive fish will crowd out prize native fish and hamper recreational boating in large sections of the lakes...

It's late on a Tuesday morning and — as it's done every day for decades — the Patrick Gannaway towboat pushes its two barges up the Mississippi River right through downtown Minneapolis. To get its 2,400 tons of sand, gravel, and limestone past the river's only waterfall, the barges take a five-story vertical ride inside the Upper St. Anthony Falls lock. Deckhands squeeze everything into the narrow chamber and use a winch to take up the slack in the boat's steel cables. In a control room above, a lock operator closes the chamber's enormous gates before opening a valve and...

An experimental underwater speaker system designed to repel invasive Asian carp is up and running in Genoa, University of Minnesota officials confirmed this week. The announcement is a win for researcher Peter Sorensen and his team from the Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Center, who have been raising funds for the project since April, but at least one local stakeholder is voicing concerns about the project’s impact on the Mississippi River. Mark Clements owns and operates Clements Fishing Barge below Lock and Dam No. 8, where the speakers are installed. He fears the sounds emitted — which researchers say have been...

Scientists are studying the cause of a massive fish kill in western Kentucky, which state wildlife officials are saying is the largest kill of its kind recorded.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The troublesome fish currently known as Asian carp may get a new name in Minnesota over concern that the current one casts people from Asian cultures in a negative light. Proposals advancing in the Legislature would require the Department of Natural Resources to refer to the fish as "invasive carp," a reference to the threat the non-native fish pose to Mississippi River-area ecosystems. ...

Michigan fisherman hooks 3-pound, 15-inch long goldfish Mike Martin caught the large goldfish while ice fishing at Lake St. Clair in Michigan. He says he plans to eventually mount the catch, which has become an international sensation. Mike Martin, 25, set out onto the icy surface of Lake St. Clair, a freshwater lake between Michigan and Ontario, on Jan. 11. The temperature was beginning to rise and there was a feeling in the air that it might be his last ice fishing opportunity for a while. He cut a circle in the ice and dropped his line into the familiar...

Paul Christensen cast his line deftly into the water. Seconds later, the line went taut and he went to work to reel in his catch. The outcome was never in doubt, but the fish was not giving up without a fight. After a couple of minutes, Christensen showed off his catch, a carp of about 5 pounds (more like 3 pounds), hooked on the soccer field at Fuller Park in Ann Arbor Friday. That’s right, a soccer field. “It’s sort of a making lemonade out of lemons situation,” said Dirk Fischbach of Saline, who came out with Christensen Friday to...

MUKWONAGO, Wash.- A Wisconsin restaurant chef is planning an "invasivore" dinner starring dishes made from invasive Asian carp taken from the Illinois River. Chef Jimmy Wades of the Heaven City Restaurant in Mukwonago said the Asian carp menu for "invasivores" -- those who enjoy helping the environment by dining on invasive species -- will hit the restaurant in February as part of his Tapas Tuesday series, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday. "Lots of people will try anything once," Wades said. However, some conservationists warned creating demand for Asian carp could increase the threat to the Great Lakes and other...

WASHINGTON, D.C. --The U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill Wednesday that makes it a criminal offense to import voracious Asian carp into the United States. The giant carp, which can weigh as much as 100 lbs., were legally imported to fish farms along the Mississippi River during the 1970s, but escaped during floods and spread north into Illinois. They consume vast amounts of food and could destroy Great Lakes fisheries if they evade barriers around Chicago that were designed to block them from entering the lakes. Share Tweet 12 Comments The bill passed the House by voice vote after...

The White House has tapped a former leader of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Wildlife Federation as the Asian carp czar to oversee the federal response to keeping the invasive species out of the Great Lakes. On a conference call today with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and other congressional leaders, President Obama's Council on Environmental Quality announced the selection of John Goss to lead the near $80 million, multi-pronged federal attack against Asian carp. "This is a serious challenge, a serious threat," Durbin said. "When it comes to the Asian carp threat, we are not in...

CHICAGO — In a deal intended to help keep the invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, a Chinese meat packing company will buy fish taken from Illinois rivers to send to China where it is a delicacy. Big River Fisheries in Pearl, Ill., will catch, process and ship at least 30 million pounds of fish by the end of next year and sell it to Beijing Zhuochen Animal Husbandry Company, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced Tuesday. "The high quality and taste of the wild Asian carp from Big River Fish far exceeded our expectations. We see a tremendous...

The fish that could eat the Great Lakes is only 6 miles away from Lake Michigan now — maybe. The big, ugly and unbelievably hungry Asian carp has been making its way up the Mississippi for two decades and now appears to be closer than ever to migrating en masse to the world's largest body of fresh water. If it starts reproducing there, scientists say, it's likely to eventually consume much of the plankton that forms the basis of the food chain that supports what's estimated to be a $7 billion sports fishery. "These fish are extraordinarily prolific, and if...