If Cody Moreland was looking to build a résumé for his future career, he hit the jackpot at Prospect Park Lake.
The 14-year-old, who recently graduated from Manning Middle School and will enter Wheat Ridge High School in the fall, caught a state-record fish June 4, but not just any record. His 51-pound, 42-inch grass carp, with a girth of 28 inches, is the heaviest fish ever recorded in Colorado. It edges out a 50.35-pound mackinaw, taken in 2007 from Blue Mesa Reservoir by Donald Walker, for that distinction.
“I was working a Rapala Dives-To minnow along the bottom, hoping to catch a bass,” said Moreland, who aspires to become a professional fisherman and had been fishing in the park with his grandfather, Bill Hedberg. “I felt just a little nibble — and then it took off and kept on going. I thought I’d hooked a big catfish.”
Back, forth the fight was on. About 25 minutes later, Moreland, using a medium-action Zebco Rhino rod and Zebco 33 reel equipped with 14-
pound-test Berkley line, landed the fish.
“A crowd of people had gathered around me, and they were saying things like ‘Good job’ and ‘Way to go,’ but I was just in awe,” Moreland said. “I was just amazed at what a big fish it was.”
Of that there was no doubt. But exactly what kind of fish was it?
“We couldn’t be sure,” Cory’s father Darren said. “It looked like a carp, but it was a little different. It was more silvery and the mouth was different. We weren’t sure what it was, but we knew it was something pretty special.”
The next day, a Saturday, the Morelands took the fish to the Denver headquarters of the Colorado Division of Wildlife. It was closed, but someone directed them to the nearby Paulino Gardens for weighing on their certified scales.
“We weren’t sure what kind of carp it was but we checked the state records for common carp and grass carp,” the elder Moreland said. “When they weighed it, we knew we had the record either way.”
(The state record for common carp is 35 pounds, 5 ounces; the old record for grass carp was 44 pounds, 8 ounces.)
Paul Winkle, the DOW’s Denver area fisheries biologist, officially identified the fish as a grass carp, an exotic species from Asia sometimes also called an Amur River carp. As plant eaters, limited numbers of grass carp, sterilized while in the egg stage, are stocked into small lakes and ponds in eastern Colorado as a biological means of controlling aquatic vegetation. They are silvery and usually more slender than common carp. Their mouth points outward, rather than downward, as a common carp. Grass carp do not have barbels by their mouth or spines in their anal or dorsal fins.
A check of DOW stocking records showed the Prospect Park Lake was stocked with grass carp in 1988, 1992 and 1993. The record fish most likely was among the fish stocked in 1992 or 1993.
“It’s amazing to think that fish was older than I am,” Cory Moreland said.
The paperwork for the state record is almost complete, and the Morelands plan to have the fish mounted for display. The fish also easily qualified for recognition in the DOW’s Master Angler program, and Moreland already has received that certificate and patch.
Fishing is a family tradition with the Morelands and recent trips have included outings to Florida for tarpon and Oklahoma for catfish. Darren takes pride in his son’s achievements.
“He started when he was very young, and he’s already become a better fisherman than I am,” the elder Moreland said.
Cody Moreland is excited about the record but hopes it’s not his last.
“Hunting and fishing are my favorite things to do,” Moreland said. “I’d like to have a career in fishing, maybe as host of a TV show, as a guide or something.
“I’d like to start fishing in tournaments, and I’m hoping this will help me get some sponsorships and maybe some equipment. I want to keep fishing, and I’d like to catch some more records.”
