GOING FISH'IN? YEP! GOT WORMS? YEP! BUT I'M GOING ANYHOW!

This week I had a chance to go fishing for Paddle Fish with the fellas from Cabela's (some call them Spoon Bill). If you are not familiar with Paddle Fish. They are a prehistoric fish that only gather in a few places in the US. We caught these fish at Gavins Point Dam located on the Missouri River near Yankton South Dakota. These crazy fish are plankton eaters . They use their large paddle noses to stir up the sediment on the bottom of the river then ingest the water with their large mouth. The water enters their mouth. The plankton is consumed and the water leaves by way of their enormous gills.

Sense these are not attracted to bait or other fish life, the only way to catch them is by snagging them with large trebble hooks. This is done by throwing a line out with a heavy weight and large trebble hooks. When you real the line back to the boat your goal is to (by chance) drag a hook acrossed fish snag'em. And let me tell you what, when you lay into a 30lb fish, the fight is on.


A Paddle Fish lives up to 60 years of age. They've been known to grow over 6 feet long.
This fish is 20 to 30 years of age and weighs 32lbs. It measured 41 inches long.

We fished all day Wednesday and landed about 45 fish total. Let me tell you, I was beat. It's sad when you are too tired to fish. I know, I'm a pussy.

We kept one fish for dinner that night. We stayed in a local log cabin one night and fried our fish over an open fire, drank whiskey, smoked cigars. A total boys weekend.