World record Carp

[sakorick]

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) confirms Matt Neuling of Perryville is the latest state record holder under alternative methods after shooting a colossal 125-pound, 5-ounce bighead carp. Neuling was bowfishing with a friend July 24 when shot the mammoth at Lake Perry.

[gitano]

What a behemoth!

Paul

[sakorick]

The carp was weighed on a certified scale in Perry County. It’s the eighth state record fish recorded in 2021. This catch also beats the existing bowfishing world record of 104-pounds, 15-ounces. Bigmouth carp are an invasive species from Asia.

[Nelsdou]

In my bowfishing days I used to bury the carp I'd brought home into the garden for fertilizer. Can't imagine wrestling a 125 pounder out of the water!

[gitano]

According to the story I read, he had to have his friend help him get it into the boat!

Paul

[Jamie.270]

I hope someone had the presence of mind to pull one of the otoliths so they could determine this fish's age.
What an amazing catch/shoot.

[gitano]

The older a fish is, the greater the difficulty in aging it using either otoliths or scales. Growth, in the later years is relatively small, and the annuli 'cram together' making differentiating individual annuli difficult, even for experienced readers. Usually, if the fish is important enough, all five aging structures, (otoliths, scales, cliethra, vertebrae, and fin rays),  are used in an attempt to cross-verify.

All of that said, these fish grow very fast, and I doubt if this fish is much over 20 years old. (I could be wrong about that, though.) It's not like a big musky or lake trout, (or several other northern species). Finally, unless you are skilled and experienced, (most fisheries biologists aren't), you have to destroy the skull to extract an otolith. In a fish like this, even if a styrofoam mount, (as opposed to a skin mount), is in the offing, I would want to preserve the skull, much in the same way one preserves a "European mount" for a deer. I would tell the biologists to use scales and vertebrae if they wanted to age this fish.

Paul