People fishing for Paddlefish
History of paddlefishing
The big bill (nose) on these fish are long and fairly flat. It has electrodes on its nose to sense where the plankton are. Plankton give off an electronic current and the fish senses that and goes to feed.
This paddle fish is a mid-sized one at about 40 to 50 pounds. They say the biggest one caught this year was 110 pounds.
This is the Fish and Game cop that had to stay out there all day today and tag and measure each Paddlefish and he was still nice enough to pose for our picture.Paddlefish are a new thing to us. They look like some pre-historic animal kind of like a Duck billed Platypus we think. The nose on these fish are long and hard. They only eat plankton from the bottom of the river. They can only be caught in the Yellowstone River near Glendive and in China. They spawn like Salmon do and only at this time of year. They will only let about 800 fish be caught before they close the season. The season could last only two or three days or over a week depending on how fast they are caught. They harvest the eggs for caviar as they are pulled out of the river and then the fish is yours to take. After the season they have 10 days of catch and release. When they have catch and release a Fish and Game officer will tag each one and measure it before it is released. The fish do not have bones they have an exo-skeleton so all the meat can be made into steaks. Some say it is a poor mans lobster, some really like it and others say it is too oily. We just want to catch one and have it taxidermy hopefully next year.
