“My face was priceless, my father said,” the Bristol man said Friday. “I was shaking the moment I recognized it fighting in the water. My anxiety was through the roof!”


The golden bronze fish had the showy fins of the fantail carp and the distinctive scale pattern of a mirror carp. Beauchene estimated it was 15 years old.

Carp are found in waters throughout the state. They were brought to Connecticut from Europe in 1871 as an easy to raise food source — the state’s first aquaculture, Beauchene said. Carp are omnivores and they grow quickly and can live for decades, but the fish in Connecticut are not the same as the invasive Asian carp causing big problems in the Mississippi River, Beauchene said.