Small lake, huge fish: That’s this fisherman’s story

It doesn’t always take a big lake to produce a big fish.

Take it from Frank Shelton, 70, of Liberty. He was casting a jerkbait for bass at one of the small lakes in the Fountain Bluff Athletic Complex in Liberty recently when he hooked something much bigger than he expected.

Battling the lake monster from shore, he held on as the fish ran almost all the line from his reel. Twice.

Finally, after a fight of almost a half-hour, Shelton won the tug-of-war and got the fish to the bank. Fellow fishermen netted the monster and used a hand-held scale to weight it.

Only then did Shelton realize what he had: a 68-pound grass carp of near state-record proportions.

“I snagged it in the tail, so it fought like crazy,” Shelton said. “I knew right away it wasn’t any bass. I thought I might have had a big channel cat at first.

“But it never occurred to me that it might be a huge grass carp.”

Fishing with 12-pound test line, Shelton took his time getting the monstrous carp in. When he got it to the bank, he knew he had something rare.

The Missouri state record for pole and line is 69 pounds. But Shelton’s fish wouldn’t have qualified anyway, said a representative of the Missouri Department of Conservation. Because it was inadvertently snagged, it wouldn’t have been considered a legal catch.

No problem there. Shelton posed for a few pictures, then tossed his catch back.

“It’s still there for someone else to catch,” Shelton said.

Something to gobble about

Think “turkey dinner.”

It’s almost April, and that means the spring hunt is on.

▪ In Kansas, it starts Friday when the turkey season for youth and hunters with disabilities starts. That season will run through April 12. Youngsters must be ages 16 and under and must be in the immediate supervision of an adult 18 and over.

▪ The Kansas bow hunting season will open Monday and will continue through April 12.

▪ The Missouri youth hunt will be April 9-10. Kids ages 6 to 15 are eligible.

▪ The regular firearms season will run April 13 to May 31 in Kansas, and April 18 through May 8 in Missouri.

Prospects in both states look good. Missouri reports a good population of 2-year-old gobblers, the birds that respond most readily to calls. Kansas also has good numbers of birds, especially in the eastern one-third of the state.

Missouri state-record fish

Missouri has a couple of new marks in its fishing record books.

A 74-pound black buffalo was caught on March 14 by Travis Cardona of Hillsboro, Mo., while he was bowfishing on one of the lakes at the Duck Creek Conservation Area. That set the alternative methods record, surpassing the former mark of 59 pounds, 8 ounces, also set at Duck Creek three days earlier.

Brent Newton of Holts Summit, Mo., also went into the record books after catching a 2-pound goldeye on rod and reel on the Osage River. That beat the former record of 1 pound, 12 ounces landed in 2012 at Lake of the Ozarks.

Local chapter excells at fundraising

The Greater Kansas City Chapter of Ducks Unlimited has been recognized as one of the nation’s best for its fundraising efforts in 2015.

The chapter ranked in the top 10 on the Chairman’s Roll of Honor, recognizing chapters that earned between $250,000 and $999,000.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 3:31 PM with the headline "Small lake, huge fish: That’s this fisherman’s story."