CHEYENNE - On April 15 Mike Laursen went 15 rounds with a heavyweight fish, possibly the biggest ever hooked in Wyoming outside of Flaming Gorge Reservoir and Jackson Lake. Due to his fishing savvy, after 60 minutes in the Sloan’s Lake ring, Laursen won the match with the Asian opponent.

The thrill of victory was tempered later the next week, when Laursen was informed he was disqualified from being awarded the state record title on an inadvertent technicality.

Laursen won the match that morning with a grass carp, a sterile import with a voracious appetite for aquatic vegetation, weighing in that day at around 36 pounds. But he’s not getting the state record for the species. He inadvertently snagged the fish, a detail the veteran Cheyenne angler readily volunteered about the feat.

"We commend Mike for his honesty about the fish being snagged or ‘foul hooked,’ but state record fish must be hooked in the mouth," said Mike Stone, fisheries chief for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "We also recognize his fishing skill to be able to battle a huge fish like that with 4-pound test line for an hour and get it landed. That was an amazing accomplishment."

Laursen, 62, was using a small Swedish Pimple, an elongated spoon equipped with just a No. 12 treble hook. "Whether the big fish brushed my line to make me think I had a strike or if I missed the strike of a trout or crappie and hooked the big fish that was laying nearby, I’ll never know," Laursen said.

Prior to the battle, Laursen landed two pan-sized cutthroat trout and a largemouth bass he estimated at 1½ pounds. If a game fish, such as a trout, bass or walleye, is inadvertently snagged, it should be returned to the water immediately. It is unlawful to intentionally snag game fish.

The tiny treble hook was imbedded where the last of the grass carp’s muscle meets the tail. That contributed to the physics enabling the fish to drag Laursen the length of the 29-acre lake’s north shore.

Laursen estimates the 42-inch grass carp ran out at least "a football field" of his line and the strain forced him to frequently shift the rod to his left hand to let his right arm to recover. "It was literally a whale by the tail," he mused of the fish sporting a 25-inch girth. "A big fish like that goes anywhere it wants to go."

On April 16, the career U.S. Air Force veteran brought the fish to the Game and Fish office where it officially weighed in at 34 pounds 6.5 ounces. That would have beat the old record by nearly 9 pounds. Biologists estimate it had lost at least a pound since caught.

"No hard feelings about not getting the record," he said. "The rules are clear on that. I’m just happy to have had the opportunity to fight the fish. I’ve been fishing over 50 years and it’s the biggest fishing thrill of my life."

The first two state record grass carp: 23.13 pounds caught June 29, 2003 and 25.86 pounds caught June 7, 2005 also came out of Sloan’s Lake.

These are three of 1,000 half-pound sterile grass carp from an Arkansas hatchery that were stocked in Sloan’s Lake in August 1989.

The Asian fish got its name from its hearty appetite for aquatic plants. Grass carp have been stocked in eight other lower elevation Wyoming waters to help control plant growth and improve habitat for game species.

"You can really notice how the amount of algae has declined in Gelatt Lake (west of Laramie) since grass carp have been stocked," said Mike Snigg, Game and Fish Department fisheries supervisor in Laramie. "It is hoped that reduction of algae and aquatic plants thanks to grass carp will mean more oxygen for trout in the winter months."

Grass carp, also called white amur, can be distinguished from common carp by a smaller dorsal and anal fin, more tubular body and a whitish-tint. The North American record weighed 78 pounds, 12 ounces and was caught out of the Flint River, Ga. in July 2003.
(contact: Jeff Obrecht, photos available)