On Friday two Kentucky teens were up late into the night (well past curfew for most of their peers), and for good reason. Sixteen-year-old Bradyen Shaw and his buddy Easton were cruising the Ohio River for carp when Brayden arrowed a bighead carp that could be a contender for the youth bowfishing world-record.
The two buddies were almost ready to hang up their bows when they spotted a giant carp in shallow water, according to WPSD Local. By that point in the evening Shaw’s equipment had taken a beating and he was down to one arrow with a bald tip and a broken nock. This caused the teen to miss the carp and spook it, but they were able to loop around and relocate the giant fish.
“I’ve never had to shoot them without a nock and having to hold the arrow,” he told the news station. “I went to shoot, and it fell off. I tried again — fell off.”
This happened three times until he finally connected. With a rush of adrenaline, they heaved the bighead aboard their. Shaw says he had difficulty hoisting the fish by himself later.
By then it was nearly 3:30 a.m., and no local businesses with certified scales were open. Shaw took the fish home overnight (he said it weighed 91 pounds after two hours out of the water) then weighed it on what he called “official” scales at Aquatic Protein, a shop that buys invasive carp from local fishermen in Eddyville, Kentucky.
Brayden Shaw Youth Bighead Kentucky State & World Record!! #forcefeedem #bowfishing #fishing
A video shows the two buddies hauling the fish onto a large scale outside the shop, where it weighed in at 82 pounds. Shaw told WPSD he will now hold the state and world bowfishing record for the species. The current youth record for bighead carp in Kentucky and world-wide, according to the Bowfishing Association of America, is held by Landon Conely, who shot his 86-pound 6-ounce fish on May 18, just 11 days before Shaw. That fish taped out at 55.5 inches with a girth of 36 inches.
The world-record bighead carp taken with bowfishing tackle by any angler is a 104-pound fish arrowed in West Virginia in July 2020.
Shaw couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, and the Bowfishing Association of America did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the status of Shaw’s potential record. Bowfishermen must be a paying member of BAA to submit a record, and processing time for submissions usually takes between two and three weeks.
Read Next: Bowfishing Basics: 6 Tips to Get Started
Bighead carp are a problematic invasive fish in Kentucky and surrounding areas. They were introduced in the early 1970s to reduce phytoplankton in aquaculture ponds, according to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, but have since escaped and are upsetting the ecological balance throughout large rivers and reservoirs in the Mississippi River basin.
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