Courtesy photos: Logan Kuhrmann (left; photo by Matt Weber), Trey Tinkle and Phillip Overman (top left, Botton left; courtesy of MS Department of Marine Resources)
June 14, 2022
By Game & Fish Staff
Carp anglers will tell you about the brute strength the fish shows off when it’s hooked. It sort of feels as if you’ve hooked a refrigerator.
What about the bass angler who catches a 49-pound carp by accident? We’re pretty sure Logan Kuhrmann, of Essex, Md., must have been thinking world-record largemouth. Especially, since the fish bit a bass lure.
Well, it wasn't the next IGFA record largemouth, but the big common carp Kuhrmann caught June 4 in the Susquehanna Flats area of the Chesapeake Bay was a state record in Maryland’s Chesapeake division.
Kuhrmann told the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) he used spinning tackle with a plastic worm and thought at first he’d hooked either a flathead or blue catfish.
"We’ve seen some really big ones up in the Flats but we’ve never seen one this big ever," Kuhrmann said. "The bass fishing wasn’t great but this made my week."
The catch broke the previous record of 44.4 pounds, caught off Mogantown Beach in 1978. Kuhrmann's fish was weighed on a certified scale by Mike Benjamin of Herb’s Bait and Tackle in North East, and verified by a DNR biologist.
Maryland maintains state records for sport fish in four divisions – Atlantic, Chesapeake, Nontidal and Invasive – and awards plaques to anglers who achieve record catches. Fish caught from privately-owned, fee-fishing waters are not eligible for record consideration.
North Dakota: 60-Pound Buffalo is Bow Record A bow angler from Bismarck, N.D., arrowed a 60-pound, 8-ounce buffalo top break the state bow/spear record for the species by three pounds. Mitch Estabrook took the record on May 16 at Heart Butte Reservoir, where the previous record was taken in 2017.
According to North Dakota Game and Fish, buffalo are a native fish sometimes confused with nonnative and invasive common carp. The agency believes the record fish is the largest weighed in the state that was not a paddlefish or pallid sturgeon. More on North Dakota fishing records
Mississippi: 2 Salt Records Fall The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources certified two conventional tackle state fishing records set in May:
Trey Tinkle of Mountain View, Ark., set the record for Rock Hind (Epinephelus adscensionis) with a fish weighing 3 pounds, 10.4 ounces. Phillip Overman of Pascagoula set the record for Smooth Puffer (Lagocephalus laevigatus) with a fish weighing 10 pounds. More info: dmr.ms.gov
