There’s a world-record grass carp swimming in Louisiana’s Lake Concordia. The 92-pound fish was shocked up on March 11 by Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologists while conducting routine spring electrofishing on the eastern Louisiana reservoir.
Had this carp been caught on a hook and line, it would have bested the current IGFA all-tackle world record by 4 pounds. The record was caught in Bulgaria in 2009.
If the giant carp had been arrowed, it would have tied the existing Bowfishing Association of America world record, which wasset in Alabama in 2015.
Grass carp are herbivorous fish native to Asia that have been used in the United States since the 1960s to control aquatic vegetation. In the 1980s, U.S. carp producers began developing triploid grass carp, which are sterile and unable to reproduce. This allows resource managers to use the non-native species as a biological control agent for some species of aquatic vegetation.
Triploid grass carp are very effective in controlling aquatic vegetation such as hydrilla, coontail and filamentous algae, as they can consume more than their body weight each day in plant material. Lake Concordia, historically, has not been stocked by LDWF with triploid grass carp.
“This is the first time we’ve ever observed a grass carp in Lake Concordia during our sampling,” said biologist Shelby Richard. “It more than likely traveled through Cocodrie Bayou and arrived at Lake Concordia in backwater flowing from Cocodrie Bayou through the control structure into Lake Concordia.”
Samples were sent to the United States Fish & Wildlife Service’s La Crosse Fish Health Center in Onalaska, Wisconsin to determine if this was a diploid or triploid Carp. Even if it is a diploid carp, meaning it could reproduce, Lake Concordia does not have the necessary habitat for reproduction.