Angler uses Asian carp to catch prized 'Big Blue'
GODFREY -- There's a group of fishermen who plumb the waters of the Mississippi River near Alton in search of one thing -- "Big Blues," or monster blue catfish.
It's a competition between 20 or so anglers who fish whenever they can -- before work, after work, on weekends, vacations -- in hopes of landing one of the behemoths that call the murky depths of North America's biggest river their home.
David Asaro of Godfrey is part of that group, and he owns bragging rights over his catfishing buddies.
Shortly after dawn Sept. 11, the 53-year-old factory worker landed an 85-pound blue catfish just above the Melvin Price Lock and Dam with a rod and reel baited with -- get this -- an Asian carp that had jumped into his boat when as he was trolling for a spot to fish.
"He was what I've been looking for all these years," said Asaro, who has fished the Mississippi for big blues from Grafton to where the Missouri River empties into it for the past 45 years.
Asaro's catch was weighed on a certified scale at Bluff City Tackle in Alton. Three years ago, it would have tied the Illinois state record for biggest blue catfish ever caught.
However, it's 39 pounds lighter than the state record 124-pound blue caught by Tim Pruitt in 2005 a few miles south on the Mississippi from where Asaro caught his. Pruitt also is from Godfrey and made national headlines with his catch.
Asaro and his partner dropped anchor and baited four poles equipped with 40-pound test line with chunks of an Asian carp that had jumped into the boat when they first put on the river.
The infamous fish, commonly known as "jumping carp," can leap 15 feet out of the water like tarpons at the sound or vibration of motorboats. Asaro usually uses shad as bait, but the Asian carp have a voracious appetite for the bait fish.
"They are taking all the bait fish away from us so we're using them for bait," Asaro said. "We cut them up right there in the boat. You have to have a pretty good-sized piece on the end. Those big blues aren't going to bite on nothing."
Asaro had been fishing for about 30 minutes when he felt something on the end of his line.
"It wasn't really a bite," Asaro said. "All of the sudden that pole started bending down like a log went across my line, and then it kept bending. I went to grab my pole to set the hook and when I did, it was like I hooked the bottom of the river. It didn't give and it didn't move."
The largest fish Asaro had previously caught was a 47-pounder last year. He knew whatever had swallowed the hook on end of his line would make that catch look like a guppy.
Asaro let the big fish tire itself out, giving it all the line it needed. The fight lasted about 20 minutes before the fish surfaced near the side of the boat.
"Then the fun began," Asaro said. "That's when that fish decided he didn't want to come in."
The fish dove back underneath the boat and darted wildly in the dark recesses of the mighty Mississippi for another 10 minutes. Finally, the exhausted blue resurfaced.
That presented another problem: Asaro's net was too small.
"We couldn't figure out how to get that big son-of-a-gun in," Asaro said. "Luckily, the friend that was with me is a pretty good-sized guy. We had a grappling hook we grabbed it with. That was the only way to get it into the boat."