PLATTSMOUTH – A Cedar Creek resident recently snagged a place in state fishing history with his work on the Missouri River.
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission officials announced Monday that three Nebraska residents have set state fishing records. The organization officially certified three catches that took place in April and May.
Cedar Creek resident John Vrtiska set a surface spearfishing mark for silver carp. He speared a 6-pound, 10-ounce fish in May on the Missouri River. He also caught a 4-pound, 11-ounce silver carp at the same location earlier in the month.
“Silver carp are a species of Asian carp,” NGPC Fisheries Outreach Program Manager Daryl Bauer said. “Silver carp are an invasive species and we would rather they were not present in Nebraska waters. Unfortunately, they have been present in Nebraska’s Missouri River and its tributaries for several years now.”
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Eric Einspahr of Lincoln has the hook-and-line record for silver carp after catching a 7-pound, 5-ounce fish on the Missouri River in May. He was fly-fishing a Number 12 Brassie.
Einspahr and Vrtiska have traded spots at the top of the hook-and-line charts several times. The two men have become fishing friends, and Vrtiska shared his fishing spot on the Missouri with Einspahr earlier this year.
Einspahr set the initial silver carp hook-and-line mark at 3 pounds, 14 ounces on May 12. One week later, Vrtiska took a fly rod to the same site on the Missouri and caught a 4-pound, 3-ounce fish. Einspahr then returned to the spot two nights later and set the most recent mark of 7 pounds, 5 ounces.
“Certainly silver carp can get a lot bigger than that, so we will see how long Eric’s record will stand,” Bauer said. “I am betting it is going to go higher, maybe much higher.”
Elkhorn resident Nicholas Batt also entered the state history books on April 12. He set a Nebraska hook-and-line mark when he caught a 3-pound, 1-ounce tiger trout on a night crawler. He was fishing the North Platte River below Lake Ogallala at the time.
“Tiger trout are a brown trout/brook trout hybrid,” Bauer said. “The growth potential for tiger trout is still much more than three pounds. I suspect we are going to see our tiger trout records continue to climb.”