A giant, almost 100-pound grass carp was caught this month in a Louisiana lake, and it would have broken world records if it were hooked in a fishing competition.
Instead, biologists with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries caught the grass carp — 49.5" long and 92 lbs. — on March 11, during routine spring sampling of Lake Concordia.
It beats the "all-tackle" world record of the International Game Fish Association, set in Bulgaria in 2009, by four pounds, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries said in a news release. The whopper carp would have also tied the current world record of the Bowfishing Association of America, set in Alabama in 2015.
On top of this grass carp's unusual size, the species has never been seen before in Lake Concordia in Concordia Parish, the LDWF said.
"It more than likely traveled through Cocodrie Bayou and through the control structure into Lake Concordia," said Shelby Richard, a biologist with Wildlife and Fisheries, in a news release.
Grass carp are plant-eating fish native to Asia that have been used in the U.S. since the 1960s to control aquatic vegetation in inland bodies of water.
