the Story
Andy Hackett knew he’d landed a huge one. The British fisherman tried for 25 minutes to land his catch while fishing in Bluewater Lakes in Champagne, France. He thought he’d caught “The Carrot,” a legendary huge goldfish.
Hackett had, in fact, caught and reeled in the 67-pound leather carp and koi hybrid fish, which was a good name for it.
“I knew The Carrot was in there but never believed I’d catch it,” Hackett said after catching it, according to the Daily Mail.
“I knew it was a big fish when it took my bait and followed it up and down and side to side. Then, about 30 or 40 yards away, it came to the surface, and I saw that it was orange. It was great that I caught it, but I also got lucky.”
Hackett told the BBC that the Carrot was easy to find because of its bright color. But it was still a hard thing to do.
It is a “very sought-after fish.” “Not many people have captured it; it’s rather elusive,” he said, adding that The Carrot was a somewhat sluggish swimmer.
The Daily Mail says that Hackett had a cup of tea to celebrate the catch and then put The Carrot back into Bluewater Lakes, where it has been swimming for 20 years. People say that fishery manager Jason Cowler first let the goldfish out when it was a guppy.
Carrot’s specialty
“About 20 years ago, we put in The Carrot to give customers something different to fish for,” Cowler told the Daily Mail. “It has grown and grown since then, but it doesn’t come out very often. She is hard to find.”
Carrot is a nice catch. The Daily Mail says the French goldfish may be the biggest ever collected. It is 30 pounds larger than Jason Fugate’s 2019 Minnesota goldfish and more than double the size of Raphael Biagini’s 2010 French orange carp.
Pet goldfish are typically much smaller, weighing between 0.2 and 0.6 pounds. Once released into the wild, however, these brilliantly colored fish can reach enormous sizes. And unlike The Carrot, which was intentionally released by a fishery, many are discarded by their owners into lakes and reservoirs.
In the United States, goldfish that were kept as pets and then released into waterways have caused a lot of trouble in recent years. Not only do they keep growing, but they can also live in harsh environments. And when they look for food on the bottoms of lakes, they often stir up the dirt, which can kill native plants.