The emotional rollercoaster of a 10-year-old angler. His record is astonishing
A 10-year-old boy caught a giant fish on corn. The specimen he managed to catch had a body length only a dozen or so centimeters shorter than the young man’s height. The boy was very lucky – he set a new record.
The angler who managed to catch the huge fish is 10-year-old Daniel Geiger from Eaton (Weld County). The incident described by greeleytribune.com took place in the first half of June in Greeley Park (Colorado).
A 10-year-old’s big dream came true
A young Eaton resident managed to achieve something that some people work for decades to achieve. He certainly also expected that it would take him a long time to fulfill his dream – to break the record of catching the largest carp. And yet, fate can smile and, despite only 10 years of age, the boy caught a fish of impressive size, and now he is highly respected by the community. No wonder.
How did this happen? The described event took place in June. Together with his father, Ryan Geiger, he fished for corn in the pond. Suddenly, what they both thought, was a large white grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) – or at least that’s what they thought at first glance. The cyprinid was as much as 37 inches long (close to 0.94 meters). In an interview with greeleytribune.com, the young man describes that when the fish grabbed the corn, “the rod from the rod started moving.” “I had to keep the line loose, otherwise the carp would drop it as soon as it took the corn,” he explains.
Then the line started to move. – I hooked the fish and felt its weight. Most carp fight quite hard. When we saw the fish for the first time, I was very happy and screamed, says the 10-year-old.
Father and son already knew that they could count on a reward – a “Champion of Angling” certificate – because they had caught a fish of a sufficiently large size. However, when the older man entered the water to retrieve the specimen from the pond, he quickly realized that it was another ray-finned carp – a common carp (Cyprinus carpio). They decided to find out on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website what the current state record for this species was.
It turned out to be 35″ (almost 0.89 m) long. So they photographed the fish and sent the photos to CPW. There was another twist here, as experts did not confirm that it was Cyprinus carpio. So what kind of fish did Colorado’s keen anglers encounter?
A record was broken
In August, the CPW commission informed the residents of Eaton that the carp they caught was not a common species, as they believed, but a grass carp (i.e. white grass carp – Ctenopharyngodon idella), which is what they thought at the beginning. The fish, which the 10-year-old managed to catch with a little help from his father, was only 0.5″ (1.27 cm) larger than the previous record.
What’s next? The young man now plans to catch an impressively long yellow perch (Perca flavescens). This is Geiger’s favorite fish. He would like to break another record.
By the way, it is worth recalling another, equally exciting situation from the world of fishing. In Iowa, at Sundown Lake in Appanoose County, a 67-year-old man caught a fish that was subjected to genetic testing. All because of great doubts as to the specimen that the older and experienced enthusiast actually managed to capture.