Date: 05-20-2015
The Lake News
Grand Rivers – It is perhaps the catch of a life-time for 84-year-old Bill Schroeder of Paducah. Tuesday, he landed a Silver Asian Carp that weighed 106 pounds and was 4.5 feet long. It took him one hour and 45 minutes to land the fish after it pulled his 20-foot long bass boat an estimated distance of 3 miles from Kentucky Lake to Lake Barkley through the canal that connects the two giant lakes.
Schroeder who has a reputation as a big bass fisherman and has fished in many local bass tournaments on both lakes was bass fishing in Kentucky Lake when he foul hooked the monster fish. The battle with the fish drew quite a crowd of onlookers, according to Tom Moodie of Green Turtle Bay Resort on Lake Barkley in Grand Rivers.
In the end, the fish was so large Schroeder could not boat it alone. Another man who remains unknown climbed into Schroeder’s bass boat and helped him hoist the behemoth fish into the boat. According to Moodie, the second fisherman who helped Schroeder was catfishing at the time and after getting the fish into the boat he left.
Moodie said he has fished for Silver Asian Carp many times and enjoys eating them but he has never seen a Silver Asian Carp that large and that they normally top out in weight at about 30 pounds. He explained their cousins, the Big Head Carp, routinely reach weights of about 70 pounds. Moodie said, “Normally you don’t see them this big.”
There may be a new normal on the lakes. Moodie expressed his concern about the fish by saying Asian Silver Carp are a schooling fish and he said, “There could have been a thousand fish in that school.” Meaning many of the fish in that school would be expected to be of a large size.
Both Asian Silver Carp and Big Head Carp are vegetarian — they are plant eaters. Schroeder inadvertently foul-hooked the huge fish while casting for bass on Kentucky Lake. Moodie said Schroeder’s fish just showed how many fish are in the lake and how large they and the schools they congregate in can grow.
