The story of the day started off innocently enough. I cast my crankbait into an eddy. I hooked up almost immediately. The fish was taking huge extremely fast runs. It was pulling me all over the river! I thought to myself "at last I finally have a nice Wiper hooked up". After a huge tug of war and about 15 minutes of fighting I was starting to think that this wasn't going to be a Wiper even. I finally got the fish up where I could see it's tail and my fears were confirmed. I had the fish snagged in the tail and it was NOT a Wiper. But what was it??? I only caught a glimpse and my best guess was Paddlefish. The battle continue for a few more minutes and I finally got a look at the whole fish. I have never seen one in person until this day but it was immediately recognizable: Asian Carp! I had him snagged with my crankbait in the tail. I got him next to the boat, grabbed him by the tail, and hauled him into the boat. I got a couple pictures and took him to the bank to discard as is the law. It is illegal to let them loose. I threw him on the rocks and as I turned to leave a group of 5 kids came over. They were hooting and hollering and generally making a big deal out of the fish. One of the kids (I'm guessing about 8 years old) asked me if he could have the fish. I shrugged and told him yes but not to let it go. Two of the kids worked together to pick it up and made off with it. Pretty strange story overall. After cross referencing the pictures with a sign at the boat ramp I determined it was a Bighead Carp. Really in general the carp looked like a very clean, healthy, nice looking fish. It was fun to catch and makes for a good story.
I didn't catch a whole lot else the rest of the day. A couple small white bass and a small drum.
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