FIRST DAY EVER OF WYOMING FISHING PRODUCES NEW STATE RECORD CARP

RIVERTON – A one-day fishing license produced an all-time state record for Bobby Brown of Harrison, Tenn.

Between the traveling evangelist’s Riverton services, Brown was guided on what was supposed to be a trout fishing trip by Forrest Kuhn of Riverton to Pilot Butte Reservoir Sept. 28. Only one fish was caught that morning – and that wasn’t a trout, but officially 34 pounds, 15 ounces of new state record carp.

“I said ‘that’s a big carp’ right after I hooked him and saw his tail,” Brown said. “But Forrest said ‘No can’t be. There aren’t any carp in the lake.’”

After 30 minutes of following the fish’s runs up and down the shoreline, Brown proved there was at least one carp – a 35.4-incher -- in the impoundment near Morton, about 25 miles northwest of Riverton. The fish took a night crawler on the end of 10-pound-test line.

The articulate 71-year-old tries to work some hunting or fishing into his travels. He was deer hunting in Virginia when interviewed about his first day ever of Wyoming fishing and had a Florida deep sea fishing trip grounded by Hurricane Katrina. He landed a 20-pound carp in North Carolina once, but the Wyoming carp is the biggest freshwater fish of his life.

In getting the fish with a 26.5 girth officially checked and weighed, Brown said, “Everyone was so gracious and interested. It was just delightful to have the experience.”

Dave Dufek, Wyoming Game and Fish Department fisheries supervisor in Lander, didn’t think there were carp in Pilot Butte Reservoir, either. “Although we’d heard a few reports, we had never seen carp in the reservoir,” Dufek said.  

Brown’s fish replaced a 32.09-pounder on the record books that was caught Aug. 1, 2004 in Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

                The North American record carp weighed 57 pounds 13 ounces and was caught in a tidal basin near Washington, D.C. in May 1983.

(contact: Jeff Obrecht)

(photo available)

-WGFD-

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