Paddlefish

[slabberknocker]

Here are some paddlefish I caught in SD on Sunday Oct. 1. I ended up catching nine. These are truly amazing fish with a ton of fight in them. No matter if they are three pounds or 55 lbs, you better have eat your Wheaties in the morning after tangling with them. Enjoy

[Andrew Erickson]

those are some awesome pics! nice fish

[DTro]

That's one fish I would really like to catch. It's too bad that snagging is the only real option.

Do those get released at all, or is it harvest only?

Thanks for sharing!

[LEECH21]

Wow, simply WOW!

A buddy and I tried for the paddlefish lottery but didn't get picked. I would love to catch one of those. If they are anything like catching Lake of the Woods sturgeon...I bet its a blast! Was everyone catching them? And was there any "skill" behind it, or just luck? Maybe next year we'll get picked.

I see you are from Montrose....I drive for Pepsi and Montrose is on my route. Perhaps we've seen eachother at some point.

[slabberknocker]

DTRO,

You are allowed to take one fish up to 35" or over 45". 35-45 inch fish are released. I would say thaat everyfish I caught would survive. I had one fish that was bleeding pretty bad because two of the three hooks got buried pretty deep in its side. I caught on paddlefish right in the mouth like he bit it and teo of them in the bill. It is probably one of the hardest types of fishing to do. We were using 6-8 oz of lead and you rip that with a 2/0 treble hook through the water. My back was out of whack for two days after. It is no exaggeration that I probably casted 600 times from 7:00 am until 12:30.

Leech,

Everyone was catching fish. The later in the day the slower it got though. I think the fish started moving out with so many people there. The guy beside me was at about 20 when we left. There is not a lot of skill. You want to cast as far as possible and then decide if you want to drag the bottom or catch a suspended fish. They are all over. About 15 min. before casting there were a bunch of spoonbill surfacing out in front of us, so I knew we would get a lot of action. The group of three of us caught about 20-22 fish. I ended up keeping a 31" after throwing back a bigger legal fish earlier. At around 11:00 things started slowing down. If you applied this year you will have preference next year. I probably will not get drawn since I did this year and there are only 50 tags available.

The gear I was using was a Shimano 600 Takota reel, 85 lb courtland line and a heavy action 7' whummpin stick from cabelas. The trble hooks were eagle claw stainless steel 2/0. 2/0 are the biggest allowed in SD. In Oklahoma you can go bigger.

Slab