A world record-breaking “alien” fish has been captured by a shocked angler, who experts say helped narrowly avert an environmental “catastrophe”.
Bryan Baker was fishing over Grand Lake o' the Cherokees, in the US state of Oklahoma, when something monstrous snatched his line.
It was a bighead carp, an invasive alien species – and with 11 million eggs inside it, threatened to devastate the food chain.
“I knew right away that it was something unlike I’ve ever caught before,” said Bryan.
“It was the most powerful fish I’ve ever had on my line.
“It was unreal; like tying your fishing line on to a four-wheeler ATV and letting it take off, and you try to slow it down – it’s almost impossible.”
When he pulled it up, the fish weighed a staggering 118lbs and 3oz – about the same as the average 14-year-old boy.
It smashes the previous record from 2005 of 90lbs, as recorded by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA).
Mr Baker, who runs the Spoonbill Wreckers fishing guide service, said it took an “epic battle” to bring the behemoth to the surface.
Even using a braided line, tested with 100lbs of pressure, the angler had to give chase in his boat to stop the cord from snapping.
The 50-year-old said: “It was about a seven minute battle before I got it worn down to the top of the water where I could grab on to it and pull it in the boat.
“Once it did come to the surface, I couldn’t believe it.
“I was so relieved I hit my knees and I thanked god; I couldn’t believe I’d got him in. I was overwhelmed and just drained.”
He added: “This is an alien species; it came from eastern Asia.
“I get messages a dozen or more times a day thanking me for getting it out of the reservoir because this could absolutely wreak havoc on our fisheries.”
Bryan, from Miami, Oklahoma, was able to keep the fillets from the carp, and fried them up as a treat.
His catch won’t be recorded by the IGFA, however, because the fish was snagged rather than baited.
Quinton Phelps, professor of ichthyology at Missouri State University, said it was the biggest freshwater fish he’d ever seen.
He said: “Based upon all the research that I’ve done – at least based on hook and line – this is the world record bighead carp.
“I’ve held tens of thousands of freshwater fish, and this is hands-down the biggest freshwater fish that I have ever seen in person.
"It looked fake – but it’s not.”
Dr Phelps estimated the fish was up to 40 years old.
Based on the weight of its ovaries, experts say it carried as many as 11 million eggs.
How many would hatch is unknown, but Dr Phelps said that even a “very conservative estimate” would unleash 11,000 more bighead carp.
He added: “The really bad part about the bighead carp in particular is: what they consume is plankton, which is the very base-end of the aquatic food web.
“Every fish at some stage of their life depends on that resource.
“So you can imagine that, as the biomass of this invasive planktivore increases, the amount of suitable food utilised by the native fish is going to decline.
“And when that happens that’s catastrophic for the entire food web.”
Bighead carp were first imported to the US in 1973 in a bid to remove excess or undesirable plankton from ponds.
But they escaped, presumably during a flood, and have now established themselves in river systems.
