TOPEKA (KSNT) – Kansas wildlife staff have stocked several reservoirs with thousands of an odd-looking fish known for their ability to grow large and fast.
The Fisheries Division of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) announced in a social media post that it stocked several lakes with thousands of small paddlefish on Sept. 16. While the fish are tiny now, the KDWP expects them to grow quickly and reach large sizes to give anglers something else to try catching while out on the water.
Nick Kramer with the KDWP told 27 News that paddlefish are “very cool fish” and are closely related to sturgeon, regularly living up to 30 years with some reportedly reaching 60 years of age. He said the paddlefish found in North America are the only ones left after the Chinese paddlefish species went extinct in 2019.
“The unique appearance of the Paddlefish is what most will often key in on as being interesting,” Kramer said. “Their body and appearance resembles a shark with the addition of a long flat rostrum, or bill, protruding off the forehead of the fish often being between a third and a quarter of the body length. They also have a long tapering gill flap that is soft unlike the bony coverings that many are familiar with on crappie, bass, or walleye.”
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Paddlefish eat plankton and are commonly found in the Marais des Cygnes and Neosho Rivers, according to the KDWP. These prehistoric-looking fish can easily reach 70 pounds in weight within the first five years of life. The largest paddlefish caught in Kansas, out of an Atchison County Pond in 2004, weighed 144 pounds and measured at just over 54 inches in length.
American paddlefish. (Getty Images)
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Kramer said that more than 25,000 paddlefish were stocked this month that were sourced from Gavin’s Point National Fish Hatchery and Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery. He said the different sources are meant to help maintain the genetic integrity of fish within the river basins.
- Pomona Lake – 5,550.
- Tuttle Creek Lake – 5,610.
- Perry Lake – 6,095.
- Elk City Lake – 3,082.
- John Redmond Lake – 5,050.
Fisheries Division staff have focused on stocking these three northeast Kansas reservoirs with paddlefish since 2019 in an effort to restore historic populations in these waters. Recent sampling efforts have shown that paddlefish numbers in these reservoirs may be bouncing back.
“The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) developed a Paddlefish management plan in 2019 with the primary objective of sustaining and supplementing naturally occurring downstream populations,” Kramer said. “Conservation efforts in Kansas have, to date, consisted of a large-scale stocking program through cooperation with neighboring states and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.”
The KDWP also shared that it is illegal to snag for paddlefish or any fish in Perry, Tuttle Creek or Pomona or the lake’s associated spillways and rivers above each reservoir. Snagging is defined as hooking a fish in any part of its body other than the inside of its mouth. The main method of catching paddlefish is through snagging which makes it harder for KDWP staff to reestablish populations of the fish in these locations.
“We may propose opening these reservoirs to snagging when we are confident that the populations can support the pressure.”
KDWP Fisheries Division social media post excerpt
Anglers can only engage in paddlefish snagging from March 15 to May 15, according to the KDWP. You can learn more about snagging and where to do it by clicking here.
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