"Largest bighead carp we've caught:" Commercial fisherman snags massive fish in Illinois

A commercial fisherman scouring the backwaters of the Illinois River last week may have caught more than he bargained for when a massive bighead carp lodged itself in his net.

What's more surprising, it was the second fish in as many days with a weight hovering around the 100-pound mark that Charlie Gilpin Jr. hauled in while fishing the same waters. With Gilpin's permission, the Illinois River Biological Station shared a photo on Facebook of the latest catch, which the agency said weighed in at 109 pounds.

Gilpin reportedly caught the gigantic bighead carp on Thursday, June 15 — one day after he caught a 90-pounder in the same area, said Jason DeBoer, a larger river fisheries ecologist with the Illinois River Biological Station, a monitoring and research facility. The biological station is funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and administered by the United States Geological Survey.

"That is by far the largest bighead carp we've caught," DeBoer said, adding that based on his research, the fish is larger than most listed state records for bowfishing and snagging.

A species of fish native to East Asia, the bighead carp — also known as "the Asian Carp — was introduced to the southern United States in the mid-1900s to help fish farms control algae blooms and improve water quality, DeBoer said. But they eventually escaped into the lower Mississippi River basin and continued to march upstream, where their populations have exploded in Midwestern rivers from the James River in South Dakota to Ohio tributaries in Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

The species is considered highly invasive due to the disruption they cause to native food chains, particularly for sport and commercial fish, DeBoer said.

See award winners:Pair of preening pigeons win National Audubon Society’s 2023 photo contest

All contracted commercial netting crews involved in removal efforts of the species in the Illinois waters are required to have either a member of the Illinois Natural History Survey or the Illinois Department of Natural Resources along with them during excursions.

That's how Andrew Wieland, another large river fisheries ecologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey's biological station, came to be on board when the 109-pound bighead carp became snagged in Gilpin's net. Gilpin even allowed Wieland to pose with the catch as he snapped a photo for posterity.

Given the American public's reluctance to eat a fish whose name is too similar to the common bottom-feeding carp, DeBoer said the fish was turned it into liquid fertilizer.

Though a commercial market for the bighead carp is largely nonexistent, it's not for lack of effort. Last summer, the Illinois DNR launched a campaign rebranding the fish as copi — a pun playing off how "copious" the fish is — touting the species' flavorfulness and healthiness in an effort to encourage more people to consume it.

Unlike the common carp with which its unfairly associated, bighead carp's flesh is white and tender, with a taste comparable to walleye or farm-raised tilapia, DeBoer said.

More:Critically endangered twin cotton-top tamarin monkeys born at Animal Kingdom

And unlike the bottom-feeding carp, DeBoer insists that the filter-feeding bighead carp have one major selling point: "they are much healthier to eat."

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @EricLagatta.