When Ron Barker went on a fishing trip to Pyramid Lake in Nevada last month, he wasn’t expecting the 20-pound monster carp he reeled in.
After wading out into the water, the former Pocatello resident got a bite. Baker set the hook, but the fish wasn’t going to come in without a fight.
“It was like a runaway Volkswagen bug,” he recalls. “It was a whopper stopper of a fight.”
Barker eventually won the battle. He initially thought he had caught a massive cutthroat trout. But on closer observation, he realized it was actually a carp.
“I wondered why this trout has a yellow stomach,” he said. “It was scary how big this thing was. It was the Stephen King carp.”
Barker is a retired case worker for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. But his favorite pastime has always been angling, a hobby he took up as a young man growing up in Iowa.
While carp can grow to over 80 pounds, the fish usually only weigh from two to five pounds. When he showed the fish to the locals at the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, they were just as perplexed at its size as Barker was.
The locals were also perplexed at how a carp could survive and prosper in the lake’s saline waters.
“They had no idea how it even got in there,” Barker said. “They figured the carp was an improvisational fish, modifying its type of feeding to survive.”
Pyramid Lake itself is a perplexion. Located about 40 miles northeast of Reno, Nevada, the lake’s salinity is approximately one sixth that of ocean water. Surrounded by low-laying clouds, strange rock formations, caves and hot springs, it certainly gives off an eerie vibe to visiting fishermen.
“It’s a mysterious body of water, ” Barker said. “It looks like something on the moon, like somebody carved out this extensive thing in the middle of the desert and filled it with water when no one was looking.”
Despite the water’s salinity, Pyramid Lake is known for its trout. Barker says the trout he has caught in the lake are unique because they taste more like salmon, which he believes is due to the lake’s saline waters.
Though trout was the original focus of his trip, Barker says it was nice to be the person who landed the largest recorded carp in Pyramid Lake. He used a two-inch iridescent metal lure to catch the fish, which he says is odd because carp aren’t usually attracted to metal.
“I had garlic for breakfast. Maybe they were attracted to that,” he laughs.
On his way back to Boise, where he currently resides, Barker donated his monster catch to a restaurant in Sparks, Nevada. But he has one regret.
“They say carp tastes really good in fish tacos,” he said. “I just wish I would have gotten a taste.”