FESTUS, Mo. — It’s easy to see what George Chance is passionate about. From the fish decal on his truck to the impressive bass mouths mounted outside his garage, you know this is a man at home near the water.
And Chance's passion for fishing is genetic.
"It was just the very first memories I had was fishing with my dad. And from the time I can remember, I loved to fish," Chance said. "We’d go down and fish until dark and a quarter-mile down the creek. He’d put me on his shoulders and carry me back after dark so I wouldn’t get all wet coming through the weeds.”
Fishing is almost religious for Chance, as his custom paddle clearly shows.
And if you'd believe it, there was even a time in the now 78 year old’s working career that fishing cost him a job.
"(I) ended up getting terminated for fishing," Chance laughed. "I fished the creek at lunch time, there were other issues involved, but they terminated me for fishing. And my wife had been expecting it.”
On March 19, all those jigs made, all those crank baits tied on and all of those casts paid off for the Festus resident in a truly huge way.
It was a normal day fishing on the Mississippi River. That was until Chance felt a tug that seemed to be just a bit stronger than most.
“You could almost hear the line go through the water. I was holding my rod up here and the butt in my belly and the reel ... and he was stripping that drag like it was an ultralite. And I’ve got 50-pound spider wire and probably had the drag set at 30 or 40 pounds, and he is stripping that thing. And I’m thinking, ‘Look at this spool go down.’ He probably ran 40 yards," Chance said. "I said, ‘Man, if he gets out there too far, I'm gonna run out of line.’”
He didn’t know it yet, but Chance had hooked a 97-pound bighead carp. After a 20-minute fight, the angler got the fish on land.
“By the time he got to the bank, he was totally worn out. He just almost rolled up on his side. I got the hook in him and dragged him up on the bank. I’m sitting there huffing and puffing and holding him so he don’t flop back in," Chance said.
Chance took it to a recycling center to weigh it and called a conservation agent, who gave him some exciting news.
"He told me right there, ‘You’ve got a state record.' I said, ‘You’re kidding.’ He said, ‘No you got a state record.’ Then I'm home the next day and Jeff City calls. And they said, ‘George you don’t just have a state record, you have a world record.’ And I said, ‘You’re kidding? What’s that involve?'”
Chance didn’t just break the rod and reel bighead carp world record. He shattered it by 7 pounds. The fish was even bigger than his wife.
"Bigger girth than her and weighs more," Chance laughed. "I had buddies when I sent them the picture they said it was photoshopped.”
Now the angler has a story for a lifetime and a world record to prove it.
"My wife said, ‘You’re gonna get a bigger head.’ I said, ‘Babe, my head wouldn’t get this big if I won the lottery.’ But I can’t stop grinning. That is so cool. That’s unbelievable. Of the thousands of casts I've made," Chance said.
And as for the fate of the fish? Well, It is an invasive species in Missouri. But the fish still found a purpose to serve: fertilizing Chance’s vegetable garden.
And the lifelong angler is already planning for that next world record.
"I said the problem is there’s nothing left in my 'to do' bucket. I'm going to need to put a different species of fish (to catch for a world record) in there because I need a goal in life," Chance said.