Rare catch

I caught my first ever paddlefish yesterday on the Mississippi. Here is a pic. Not huge, but fun none the less…

Fishing was great today, with around 25 fish over 17″!

Tuck

were you on pool 4 or where did you catch it. i dont see a picture of it. love to see it.

I’ll try it again, my PC crashed…
Yes, I was on Pool 4, fishing was a lot better today than yesterday for me…
Tuck

thats cool Tuck…

I’ve never caught one of those before

So tell us about it! How’d you get it? Did it feel different? What went through your mind when you first saw it? How’d it react? Are they slimy like a northern?

Cool Catch!

Interesting fish aren’t they. I believe they don’t have a bone type skeleton but have cartilage similar to a shark for a skeleton. A few years ago I caught one at Guttenberg while fishing for walleyes in February. Caught it on 8# test with an ultralight pole, took 25 minutes and weighed 32 pounds! Turned out to be the second largest fish I ever caught.

I’ve heard they are more a sturgon than they are a catfish

where did u snag it?..if im correct paddlefish only eat microscopic plankton..

I have caught a few of these fish up at the dam. And every time I have snagged them in the bill, kinda makes you think that they were going after my jig. But I heard they were a plankton fish also.
I was out fishing with my little cousin and he thought the first one was a dolphin lol
But the only time I have ever caught one was in the spring, never even heard of one being caught after the weather has warmed up.
Arent the paddle fish like prehistoric fish, thats what i was told, lately the last few year you hear of many of them being caught.

Paddlefish are filter feeders. The large bill is used for rooting up sediment and filtering out food particles. Their skeleton is made of cartilidge instead of bone. They are more closely related to sturgeons and sharks for this reason but not in the same family as either. Nice seeing more of them up here as they do not tolerate pollution well.

I got him by the tail. They feel just like a sturgeon. I saw one about 15 pounds caught today…
Nate Cadwell had the creature from the Balck Lagoon on today, but broke him off! We sat there camera ready…SNAP!
Bummer!
Tuck

Yeah that was a bummer wish I could have got it in and snapped some Pics but ohwell the Walleyes made up for it. Great seeing and talking with ya Tuck.

What kind of studies have been done on these fish? Noticing the comments of timely/seasonal encounters, do you suppose they’re staging for spawn too?

nabraska game & parks puts tracking chips in the snout or bill to track them.we snag them on the missouri river gavins point dam.they want you to saw off the bill at the ramp put it in a bucket and then they do some kind of research. my bigest is 52inchs 38lbs what a fight tastes like chicken.

i will try to put up a pic.

HOOOOOOLY FISH! That’s way cool! If that’s just under 40lbs, how big are the 100+ tanks? It’s soooo cool to think about critters like that……………swimming all around us and we’re almost always oblivious to it! Those are actually a pretty cool looking fish………..I think, at least, ……………anyway.

Not that catching one (on accident even) serves any REAL purpose, I wouldn’t mind just for the experience of seeing one in person.

That’s a great pic tightline! Thanks for sharing it with us! Wow………….it’s just cool!

I snapped this pic of a paddlefish on friday 3/14. Holy cow what a fish!!!

I don’t know the people names, but being I was doing my civic EFN duty. Gotta love the digitals, sent them copies of it also.

~~~~~~~~alkfish

WOW!!! The size of those fish look like ocean size fish not river size fish. Just goes to show you never know what you will catch on the river. Bet they were fun to bring in!!! Thanks for sharing, Bill