What North American fish can grow to over 100 pounds, has no teeth, eats microscopic plankton, and resembles a shark with a big nose? If you solved this riddle, you're familiar with the paddlefish, one of our largest, oldest, and most fascinating fish. In early America, paddlefish inhabited the large free-flowing rivers of the Mississippi Valley, extending north into Ontario and west to the Missouri River in Montana. Dam construction later eliminated theses fish from several river drainages and several states. Today, they also thrive in some impoundments, and remain in 22 states.

Rigging

Paddlefish feed by swimming through clouds of zooplankton and engulfing the tiny organisms that can't swim out of their way. Their long thin gill rakers strain the water and filter out the plankton. Since they rarely take bait or lures, anglers catch them with weighted snagging hooks-jerked in the hope they will contact a fish. This method works particularly well when paddlefish migrate upstream in spring and congregate below dams.

Conservation

Several states have begun stocking programs to maintain populations of this unique fish, but regulations allow limited harvest in conjunction with the traditional popularity of snagging. In Kansas, Montana, and North Dakota, snaggers may obtain two tags per season, which they must attach to paddlefish as hunters tag deer. All fish snagged must be kept to prevent the release of wounded fish and to ensure that the harvest includes juveniles as well as adults.

Because of the grave problem of poachers slaughtering paddlefish for their roe, which is used to make caviar, the sale or barter of paddlefish is illegal. The value of the roe, which can exceed $20 per pound for processed eggs, has spurred the development of commercial aquaculture for paddlefish. Despite restrictions on snagging, however, substantial harvest continues across much of the paddlefish's range.

Where natural spawning areas for paddlefish remain, it's critical that channelization or damming be prohibited and that pollution be minimized. Harvest must be carefully monitored to ensure that populations aren't reduced to a point at which spawning is limited. In populations sustained by stocking, harvest should be limited to allow these ancient, magnificent fish to maintain their presence in our rivers.