Had a blast on the river this weekend, took some friends over and we shot roughly 90 jumpers and I took my personal best right at the end of the day in a little stretch right by the ramp that we had always skipped to get to the "good spots". In a 100 yd stretch we put up hundreds of Giants and this was the biggest I've seen within range. He was about 25 ft behind the boat and about 5 ft out of the water! Didnt have a scale....any guesses? I'm not holding him way out....couldnt. I could fit my whole fist in the mouth easily.
My biggest Aerial Silver!
Archer0545
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Here are the best places to go for all you want to know about bighead and silver carps
http://afsbooks.org/specialpubs/51033C
http://afsbooks.org/54074P
But you can get a lot of information here, for free: http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/OtherDocuments/ACBSRAFinalReport2005.pdf
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Missouri has state records for "other methods" which includes snagging and bowfishing. So it counts for that. As far as I know, there is no group that maintains official or unofficial records of USA or North American fish, so there is not anything to qualify for there. IGFA won't accept snagged fish, so it is not eligable for a world record. There was one bighead carp over 150 pounds caught in Europe two years ago, and at least one of over 135 pounds in Brazil since then, but neither of these were submitted for a world record, and probably would not have been approved due to gear type and how the fish were handled. If you want an IGFA record, you have to go prepared to get it. Both of those big fish were eaten by people hungrier than you and me and less concerned about holding any kind of record than they are in a good meal.
BAA keeps its own records, of course, and I think Darrin Opel's 92.5 pound fish is still the bowfishing record. Unfortunately, it is not the Illinois record, because it was caught before Illinois records on bighead carp began. You'd think they would want to own this record, but have not. Tennessee has a state record bighead carp of a couple ounces bigger than Darrin's, according to the records caught "by hand". Crazy. I don't know how you catch a large bighead by hand unless it is dead or dying.
The largest silver carp I know of in the USA was 74 pounds, caught by a commercial fisher, and it is hanging on a wall in Spirit Lake, IA. There are records of silver carp approaching a hundred pounds in Asia, again, caught by commercial fishers. The largest silver carp I have held in my hands was only 24 pounds, and I have been fishing them hard for ten years. Fish larger than 20 pounds are uncommon, although every time someone gets hit in the head by one they report it was a twenty pounder. People usually overestimate the weight of silver carp. That said, I'm sure there are some that frequent this board that have taken larger fish than I have. My gear is not designed to take the really large ones, and I have seen bigger fish get away.
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Also - remember that you can NOT take these fish over the state line alive. If you catch a big one and Cabelas or Bass Pro or whoever wants the fish, if you carry it over the state line alive it is a FEDERAL OFFENSE. Being a high visibility federal offense, the chances of being prosecuted are nearly 100%. You can lose big money or go to jail. Don't do it.
Incidentally, if you take bighead carp on one side of the Mississippi River and transport them to the other side alive, you are breaking the law. I doubt you would be prosecuted unless you did something else to make offense. But I don't make those calls and in this day of heightened sensitivity I would just be sure and take the priest to any bighead or silver or black carp that I shot on the Mississippi River. They die easy and fast when you hit that soft spot on the noggin.
Incidentally, if you take bighead carp on one side of the Mississippi River and transport them to the other side alive, you are breaking the law. I doubt you would be prosecuted unless you did something else to make offense. But I don't make those calls and in this day of heightened sensitivity I would just be sure and take the priest to any bighead or silver or black carp that I shot on the Mississippi River. They die easy and fast when you hit that soft spot on the noggin.
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Thanks for the info!!!
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Do you have an educated guess on the weight of the one I pictured at the start of the thread?
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Pictures like that are pretty hard to guess because I can't tell how far in front of you the fish is, or how big you are. A big person like me holding a fish makes the fish look a lot smaller. If you had a length on the fish, I could calculate the weight, based on the condition factor of the fish. I can make a pretty good guess on condition factor - that one will have a Fulton's condition factor of about an even 1.0. From that I could calculate weight if I knew how long the fish was.
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I'll see if I can get you the length. I'm 5'9" about 190lbs and the fish isnt in front of me very far because I couldnt hold it out there very far. Also, I was hoping you could weigh in on another thread titles "species?" I would appreciate your input as you seem to be pretty knowledgeable on fish. Thanks!
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Thanks!
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