Missouri River Biologists are collecting amazing movement
data on paddlefish.
Fish number 90868 was tagged near Sioux City in March of 2011. It was recently harvested
by a commercial fisherman near Paris, Tennessee. The fish traversed over a
thousand river miles and covered 4 rivers and 5 states.
Paddlefish grow quickly, reaching two
feet in their third year or life. A 17-year-old paddlefish averages five feet
in length and weighs about 37 pounds. These fish can live a long time, with
many living more than 20 years, and it’s not unusual for them to make it past
30. They’ve also been in our waters a long time, appearing about 50 million
years before the first dinosaurs.
These giant fish subsist only on a diet
of small insects and animals floating in the water. Paddlefish stand out from
other Iowa fish with their long, paddle-like snouts, a shark-like body and no
scales. But unlike a shark, mature paddlefish have no teeth. They swim with
their mouths open to filter food out of the water. At one time, paddlefish were
easy to find in the Mississippi Valley, but over-fishing and changes in the
environment have reduced the numbers of paddlefish in our rivers, even wiping
them out of the Iowa Great Lakes.
For more on catching paddlefish in
Iowa, check out our paddlefish regulations.
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