A Big Fish and Little Story

[50inchpig]

Last day of carping, not too many fish left in the shallows. It was a little slow, so I'm moving around a little, chasing the boils and bubbles, catching a few fish, and I see the back half of an arrow sticking out of the water. Next time I looked the arrow was swimming. I realized it was a carp that someone had shot that had broken the line.

I chased her around for about 20 minutes and finally managed to get close enough to wrap my line around thes shaft of the arrow and reel it in. WOW - never seen a carp this big before. I got her wrapped, cradled, and into the boat. The arrow hit her dead center right in front of the dorsal fin and traveled along the top of her spine toward her head. I only had a little pair of pliers with me and couldn't break the arrow. I still had the lid from a can of corn I opened last week and used it to saw through the shaft - never though that would have worked.

She taped out at 33-34". I weighed myself twice at 185 and weighed myself with the fish twice at 214, so I'm confident this fish was 29 pounds (I keep a bathroom scale on the boat). Really a beautiful fish - hope she can tough it out. If any fish can survive an injury like that it's a carp. I don't know if the serious carpers will be impressed or not but I thought it was pretty sweet. Pics are from a cell phone, the foot pedal in the background is a normal size Maxxum.

[mainbutter]

pretty sweet you could saw off the shaft with the lid from a can of corn! Best of luck to your fishy, hope she survives.

[Tippman]

I've never seen a carp with that dark of fins and light colored body. Is it a buffalo fish?

[blacksportsman]

Yep, that's a bigmouth buffalo fish.

[mplspug]

Looks more like a big, fat, round torpedo! Thanks for sharing the story! I guess bowfishing is more sporting than I thought

[50inchpig]

Thanks for clarifying on species - this was my first year of real carping and I don't think we've caught any bigmouth buffalo yet. Much more fun than the crappies.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Very nice buffalo! Hard to believe it was swimming around still.

[Lowblazah]

what a monster...nice catch

[The J-Man!]

That's crazy! I have never seen that before. Yeah I hope the buffalo makes it, but I wouldn't count on it.

[Muddog]

Nice Buffalo.

The first time I boated a Buffalo I saw a dead fish on the surfice. After a bit it started to move! I chased it down with the Bow mount motor and found it was one of three Big mouth Buffalo on a stringer. They looked as though they had been on the stringer for some time.

Thank you for reminding me of that. Fun on the water!

I just looked at the pic of your fish again. What a plump pig of a fish. They do have a cartoon type look to them. It must be those Brown eyes and smooth head.