What a beast!

Yowza, what a beast!

I hate to bring the thread down this path again... but it is tragic to the specie to lose that fish. The Chinese Paddlefish has recently been officially declared extinct, and its American cousin here is on thin ice.   

They'll survive here in MN as long as the poachers stay away

 

3 hours ago, MassBass said:

I hate to bring the thread down this path again... but it is tragic to the specie to lose that fish. The Chinese Paddlefish has recently been officially declared extinct, and its American cousin here is on thin ice.   

They are doing pretty good around here. Used to be no legal harvest at all, now they let you keep 1 or 2 depending on which body of water 

 

Also the Alabama river is loaded with them, they jump out of the water all day long 

I wonder how he caught it. Since they're filter feeders, generally people target them by trying to snag them which seems slightly unethical to me.

I didn’t even know they were in Cherokee! Nice fish.

11 hours ago, gimruis said:

I wonder how he caught it. Since they're filter feeders, generally people target them by trying to snag them which seems slightly unethical to me.

There’s a snagging season on each lake, either two weeks or a month. That’s the only way to catch them I know of 

Oklahoma is known for paddlefish and has a very strict policy. Each license is allowed one per year. To keep that is. So I hope strict laws like this help preserve the species. 

 

On another note good lawd that is a huge fish to come out of fresh water!!