On April 26, paddlefish guide Bryan Lee Baker snagged an enormous bighead carp in Oklahoma’s Grand Lake of the Cherokees. According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, it’s the biggest bighead ever recorded in the Sooner State. The fish also outweighs the current International Game Fish Association (IGFA) world record for the species by more than 20 pounds. But IGFA is unlikely to recognize it—Baker tells Field & Stream—because it was snagged and not hooked with conventional tackle.
Baker's carp weighed 118 pounds, 10 ounces. Remarkably, it was just slightly heavier than another 118-pound record breaking bighead he snagged back in 2023. The heaviest IGFA-recognized bighead weighed 97 pounds when it was caught in the Mississippi River by angler George Chance in March 2024.
"We used forward-facing sonar to locate this fish last Saturday," says Baker, who works with US Fish & Wildlife Service and USGS biologists on bighead carp eradication efforts in Grand Lake. "Because these fish are planktivores, they can't be caught with bait. You've got to snag them."
When Baker located and snagged the new Oklahoma record last weekend, it was suspended in 20 feet of water. "I took it straight to the paddlefish research center [in Miami, Oklahoma] and had it weighed," he says.
At first, a staffer told Baker he'd missed the record by three ounces. But when they double-checked the books, it turned out he'd actually bested his 2023 record by a full 7 ounces. He says there have only been 95 confirmed bigheads caught in Grand Lake since 1999, and the smallest of those weighed 43 pounds.
Saving His Home Waters
Baker, who owns the Spoonbill Wreckers guide service, says he and his buddies have boated 77 of the 95 bigheads confirmed since the late 1990s, and they only started fishing for them in the spring of 2018. Though the invasive fish are elusive, he hopes to play a major role in eradicating them from Grand Lake altogether.
In addition to forward-facing sonar, Baker uses the "Judas technique"—tagging and releasing fish that later lead him to larger schools. And he's placed transmission receivers on the bottom of Grand Lake that allow him to monitor radio-tagged fish in real time.
"We're trying to combat and get rid of these fish," he says. "We're doing the very best we can. We work hard at it every day because, if we don't, Grand Lake will perish."
According to NOAA, bigheads and other Asian carp "are potentially dangerous exotics that alter natural habitats to the detriment of native fish species." They are considered highly invasive throughout the Mississippi River watershed and pose a threat to the food web and fisheries of the Great Lakes, NOAA reports. When established, they quickly outcompete native fish for plankton and vegetation as their "negative impacts cascade through the ecosystem."
Baker says Grand Lake is a highly productive fishery for bass, crappie, and other valuable sport fish. And it's a regular stop-off on the professional bass fishing circuit. Damed in 1940, it's now a top Midwestern bass fishing destination and often called the Crown Jewell of Northeast Oklahoma. Though it sits above multiple other reservoirs, the bigheads appear to be contained to Grand Lake for now.
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Baker says he has real shot at saving his home lake from the destructive invasive carp, which, when left unchecked, completely devastate aquatic ecosystems. "The top biologists who come out with me say I could single-handedly wipe out Grand Lake's bighead population, and that's what we aim to do," he says. "We're always on the lookout."
