{"id":12783,"date":"2026-06-18T21:59:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-official-unofficial-u-s-common-carp-record\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T21:59:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:59:06","slug":"the-official-unofficial-u-s-common-carp-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-official-unofficial-u-s-common-carp-record\/","title":{"rendered":"The Official Unofficial U.S. Common Carp Record"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
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On Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025, Scott Lennox banked a 64.22-pound common carp from a lake in California, breaking the U.S. record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It was no accident. Lennox is one of the small, secretive band of individuals who target trophy carp\u2014fish of 40 pounds and upwards\u2014and they\u2019re as obsessive and maniacal in their pursuit as any group of anglers in US fishing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Carp Comrades<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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When Pennsylvania-based carp specialist Yuriy Nesterov identified a small overlooked park lake with high potential, he fished it constantly for a year without a single bite. He was eventually rewarded with the first documented catch of a 30-, 40-, and 50-pounder in one session.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Olivier Gandzadi has spent decades solo-pioneering the carp potential of the massive Columbia River, from the tidal reaches all the way to the Snake River, based on nothing but his own experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fishing bum Al St. Cyr moved house<\/em> to be closer to Lady Bird Lake in the middle of Austin, Texas, when he heard it was scheduled to host a trophy carp competition and then spent months chumming the water with a specially formulated carp bait imported from England. He was motivated by a huge cash prize put up by The American Carp Society (and naively underwritten by Lloyds of London), for any angler breaking the Texas state record during the tournament. He managed to do it with a fish of over 43 pounds, pocketing a cool $250,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Scott Lennox, a 35-year-old ex-international rugby player and transplant to the Bay Area from England, wasn\u2019t even aware carp existed in the U.S. until a few years ago. He\u2019d fished for the species since childhood with his brother, a well-known U.K. carp angler, but it wasn\u2019t until he spotted another fisherman at a local pond with a distinctive European carp setup that he began to get back into the sport.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cMeeting Nico turned out to be one of the luckiest fishing encounters of my life,\u201d Scott said. \u201cAfter we got talking, he shared the location of a nearby city lake where he\u2019d caught carp up to 20 pounds. On just my second trip there, I was fortunate enough to land a 20-pounder myself. At that point, I was really back into it, and I fished that lake about 40 times, pretty soon getting to know a small, informal group of guys who carp fished locally and shared information.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s very little written content or reliable historical record to go on if you\u2019re serious about tracking down big carp. Many regular fishermen either struggle to properly identify the species, or have no idea how big they can actually grow, so gaining access to informed local knowledge is key. It\u2019s what led Scott to the water that would eventually break the record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/picture>\nCarp fishing requires special tackle. Craig Buddo<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Lake of Monsters<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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\u201cIn the winter of 2024, things really started to come together,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d heard reports of carp being caught in nearby water, which would be the largest lake I\u2019d ever fished. There were rumors of occasional really big fish coming out of it, like an upper 40 or 50. It\u2019s a very fertile water, with lots of invertebrates, snails, crawfish, and forage fish.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Carp angling is typically done from the shore, and one big downside to the lake is that it has very little foot access. When his first spot didn\u2019t produce after a couple of trips, Scott committed to hiking one and a half hours around the lake to a more promising spot, carrying all the gear he needed for a multiple-day camping and fishing session.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The biggest and wariest carp are often nocturnal feeders, so keen carpers usually fish multiple rods through the night. Some use custom landing nets and cushioned mats to lay the fish on, rod holders with built-in electronic alarms, serious amounts of chum, and a myriad of other customized camping items and tackle. One of the hottest gadgets in European carp angling is, unsurprisingly, a power-assisted wheelbarrow to cart it all around in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That isn\u2019t Scott\u2019s approach. He\u2019d already pared down his gear to an absolute minimum after a few seasons of using a bike to access local lakes, and he was used to roughing it from days spent hiking into the harsh backcountry of Cyprus, where he lived for a while, in search of quiet fishing spots. In California, he fished through the night close to his rods from a cheap camping chair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The effort paid off. He landed his first fish from the lake at the new spot: a dark, hard-fighting 23-pounder and went on to catch more than two dozen fish over the summer and fall, up to 36 pounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GIANT<\/picture>\nLennox caught this 29-pounder before smashing his personal best record.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A Birthday PB<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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To coincide with his birthday, he planned a four-day return trip beginning Saturday, December 20th, 2025. Two days in, he caught just a single 29-pounder, but unbeknownst to Scott a group of giant fish moved into the water in front of him, attracted by the flavored bait he was using.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Monday morning his bite alarm ripped to life and line began pouring off the spool. After a violent first run, the fight settled into a slow, steady battle before he slipped the net under a huge common carp of just over 50 pounds, smashing his personal best for the species by 14 pounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Probably fewer than 20 people have caught a carp over 50 pounds in the U.S., so Scott was understandably ecstatic, viewing the rest of the session as a victory lap:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMy fishing buddy Andrii Anpilogov came out the next day with his teenage son Mark, and I said to him: \u2018How do I prove it wasn\u2019t luck?\u2019 He replied, \u2018You just have to catch another one,\u2019 and we both laughed, knowing the chances were almost zero.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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About 30 minutes after that conversation, he got another screaming run. Though it felt like a very substantial fish, he thought maybe it had picked up some weed during the fight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI actually said to Andrii, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very big.\u2019 There aren\u2019t a lot of snags or things to worry about in this spot, so I just gave it room to run around and tire itself out for what felt like about 15 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Andrii helped out with the netting and weighing and probably recalls the moment more clearly than Scott:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt actually took three or so attempts to get the fish into the net. It just didn’t want to fit: that was the moment when it became clear that we’d got a monster. And that was also the moment when Scott finally showed some emotion. Once we got the fish onto the unhooking mat, we both just started laughing like crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The fish weighed 64.22 pounds on a scale that was later certified by the IGFA (actually testing a few ounces light consistently across test weights between 12 and 100 pounds) and beat the old widely accepted U.S. record by more than two pounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"SCOTT<\/picture>\nLennox with a rare fully scaled mirror.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Officially Unofficial<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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There are admittedly a few problems with establishing \u201cofficial\u201d carp records in the U.S., including the reliability and proper documentation of legacy state records. Some states do not record any carp records, while others do not differentiate between fish caught on rod-and-reel and bow or spear. There is also an extreme reluctance among keen carp anglers to tip off the bowfishing community about specific locations, so some claims are difficult to verify. (Scott\u2019s lake is deliberately not named for that reason.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But in the near 150-year history of the species being introduced to America, his fish stands as the biggest deliberately angled-for and documented common carp in the U.S. to date.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025, Scott Lennox banked a 64.22-pound common carp from a lake in California, breaking the U.S. record. It was no accident. Lennox is one of the small, secretive band of individuals who target trophy carp\u2014fish of 40 pounds and upwards\u2014and they\u2019re as obsessive and maniacal in their pursuit as any group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.ctfassets.net\/pujs1b1v0165\/7BlisR6GcOxwB4rD5G6YKh\/580286a979f6ded2b2e7bb163c38b687\/Blank_1920_x_1080__2_.jpg?fit=fill&w=1200&h=630","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hunting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12785,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12783\/revisions\/12785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}