Bacon Creek Park in Sioux City, Iowa, harbors a small reservoir that was created in the 1960s, and it’s a popular fishing spot for city residents. Local angler Jacob Mackey, 26, has been targeting various species there all his life. But after seeing some huge grass carp there from a boat during a bass fishing trip in 2024, he became dedicated to catching one of the giants.
“They started stocking grass carp in the lake in the 1970s but quit in 2011,” Mackey explains. “There aren’t as many carp in the lake as there once was, but the fish still there have grown huge.”
Ever since that summer of 2024, when he saw how gigantic these carp could get, he started learning everything he could about carp fishing.
“Carp fishing isn’t real popular in the U.S.” Mackey tells Outdoor Life. “So I learned a lot by reading about carp tactics they use in Europe.”
All that homework paid off last summer. Around noon on Aug. 10, Mackey was fishing one of his favorite shorelines. He’d been there since 8 a.m. and set up two rods, each baited with a soft plastic corn-kernel imitation. He was also using a homemade concoction of ground chum that connects to the fishing line above the hook.
“It’s called the Korda Bait-Up Method Feeder,” Mackey says. “It helps keep a chum ball on my line near a corn imitation I have on my hook.”
He explains that he makes the chum balls (known as boilies in the U.K.) in a five-gallon bucket, using a mixture of breadcrumbs, whole-grain oats, creamed and canned corn, and some nuts.
The spot he was fishing was along a tapering point that led to deep water. He’d put one bait shallow, about 6 feet down, and the other in 15 feet of water.
“The carp travel along weed line edges,” he says. “And that’s where I try to put my baits.”
After a long and sweltering morning on the bank, Mackey got a strike from a big carp. Using an 8-foot heavy-duty Penn spinning setup with 30-pound Power Pro braided line, he battled the brute of a carp for about 15 minutes.
“I had a little trouble getting the fish through some weeds and into my net because the lake was low,” he says. “I waded out into the water and got the fish in my big hoop net, but when I lifted it, it broke.
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Fortunately, the fish stayed in the net, and he was able to get it onto the bank, where he had a certified, IGFA-approved scale. The fish weighed 71.8 pounds on the scale, and measured 48 inches long with a 34-inch girth.
After weighing and measuring his carp and taking some photos, Mackey released it into the reservoir. He revived the fish and then watched it swim away.
Shortly thereafter, Mackey sent in a line-class record application to the International Game Fish Association headquarters in South Florida. He included a sample of his fishing line and his certified scales, along with photos of his carp.
The IGFA verified that the scale was accurate and the line was true to test, and Mackey’s fish has now been certified as a new world record in the 30-pound line class division. It easily topped the previous record, a 55 pound 1 ounce grass carp that was caught in Japan in 2019.
At 71.8 pounds, Mackey’s fish also is the third largest grass carp of any category in the IGFA record book. The all-tackle world record, from Bulgaria, weighed 87 pounds 10-ounces.
Related: Beginner’s Guide to Fly Fishing for Carp
Mackey says carp are way underrated as a sportfish in the U.S. And he thinks more people, especially in Iowa, should be fishing for them.
“We don’t see the same size of fish as those that live in the ocean. But grass carp are so big, they’re not easy to catch, and they fight like those giant fish do in the ocean.”
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