Paddlefish (Spoonbill): Facts, Snagging Seasons, Records and Rules

The paddlefish is a big, shark-shaped fish of the Mississippi basin with a flat snout up to a third of its body length, a toothless mouth and a diet of nothing but plankton. It grows to about 7 ft (2.1 m) and close to 200 lb (91 kg). Because it never takes a bait or a lure, the states that allow fishing for it let anglers snag it: in short spring seasons, in set waters, usually with a tag. The same fish goes by spoonbill, and its eggs are sold as caviar, which is why the rules on roe are strict.

There is no IGFA world record for paddlefish. The heaviest on record, 164 lb 13 oz, was snagged at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, on March 17, 2024, by an angler on his first paddlefish trip.

What is a paddlefish?

A paddlefish is one of the oldest fish lines still alive. Its ancestors lived in North America “about 125 million years ago,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It belongs to the order Acipenseriformes, with the sturgeons, and like them it has a skeleton of cartilage. Missouri, where scientists study it as one of the most ancestral fish alive, has made it the state’s official aquatic animal.

Four marks set it apart from every other fish in North American fresh water:

• The paddle. The long, flat snout, the rostrum, runs “up to 1/3 total body length,” the Fish and Wildlife Service says.
• A shark’s outline. Missouri’s field guide describes the body as “sharklike,” with a forked tail whose upper lobe is the longer one. It is not a shark: it is a ray-finned fish, a cousin of the sturgeon.
• No scales and no teeth. The skin is bare except for a patch of scales on the tail, and adults have no teeth.
• A huge mouth. It sits under the head and stays open while the fish swims, filtering food through the gill rakers.

Paddlefish or spoonbill? The same fish. Spoonbill is the common name along the rivers, and some anglers say “spoonbill cat.” It is no catfish: it has no barbels and does not feed on the bottom. Its only close relative, the Chinese paddlefish of the Yangtze, was declared extinct in 2022, so the American paddlefish is the last paddlefish alive.

How big do paddlefish get, and how long do they live?

Up to about 7 ft long and close to 200 lb, though most fish snagged are far smaller. The agencies give different maximum weights and ages, because each describes its own waters:

They grow fast at first. Missouri’s field guide puts young paddlefish at 10 to 14 in (25 to 36 cm) after their first year.

How old is a 40 or 50 lb paddlefish? No agency gives an age for a weight, and the answer depends on the water. In Missouri’s stocked reservoirs females mature at 8 to 10 years; on the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers of North Dakota they mature at 16 to 18. A fish of the same size can be a decade younger in a southern lake than in a northern river.

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What is the paddle for?

The paddle is an antenna, not a shovel. It carries sense organs that pick up weak electric fields, and the plankton a paddlefish eats gives off such fields. The title of a 1997 study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B says it plainly: “The paddlefish rostrum functions as an electrosensory antenna in plankton feeding.” A 2007 review in BioScience by Wilkens and Hofmann reached the same verdict. Missouri’s field guide puts it more cautiously: the paddle “apparently functions as an electrosensory organ,” letting the fish sense plankton.

Photo: Sam Stukel, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery, Yankton, South Dakota (public domain)

The speckles on the paddle in the photo above are those sense organs. What the fish eats explains everything about how it is fished. “They only eat plankton, which are microscopic plants and animals,” the Fish and Wildlife Service writes; Missouri lists “tiny crustaceans and insects” strained from the water by the gill rakers. A paddlefish swims with its mouth open and filters. There is nothing on a hook it would eat.

Where do paddlefish live?

In the big rivers of the Mississippi basin, “from southwestern New York to central Montana and south to Louisiana,” in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s words. They are gone from the Great Lakes basin, where they once lived in the Lake Erie drainage. Missouri describes them in the open water of big rivers, “swimming continuously near the surface.”

Dams changed where the biggest fish are now. Many reservoirs have no free-flowing river above them for spawning, so the fish cannot reproduce there, and Missouri says its reservoir populations must be stocked. Missouri has stocked Table Rock Lake since 1972 and stocks Table Rock, Truman Lake and Lake of the Ozarks every year with fingerlings “that are 10-12 inches long,” raised at Blind Pony Hatchery in Sweet Springs. Those stocked lakes and Oklahoma’s Keystone Lake now grow the heaviest paddlefish on record.

The best-known snagging fisheries are in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana. A few states protect the fish instead: Minnesota lists it as threatened and bans recreational and commercial fishing for it, and Texas protects it under state law (see the endangered freshwater fish page).

When and where do paddlefish spawn?

In spring, on high water, over clean gravel. The Fish and Wildlife Service says spawning “occurs in late spring at times of high water,” with eggs laid on silt-free gravel bars, and the fish “can migrate hundreds of miles before spawning.” In Missouri, “when water temperatures reach about 50 to 55 degrees F and flows rise, they migrate upstream to spawn.” In North Dakota they spawn “during high runoff in late spring or early summer,” mostly on flooded gravel bars in the lower Yellowstone River, and “eggs hatch in about 7 days in 60°F water.”

Fish in the north mature much later than fish in the south:

That spawning run is the snagging season. The fish stack up below dams and in the upper arms of reservoirs when the flow rises, which is why nearly every season sits in spring.

Why do you snag paddlefish instead of using bait?

Because a paddlefish only filters plankton, no bait, lure or fly will catch one on purpose. Snagging means hooking a fish anywhere on the body by sweeping a weighted hook through the water. It is illegal for game fish in most places, so the states that allow it for paddlefish write separate rules. Missouri allows paddlefish to be taken in designated waters by snagging and grabbing only, and keeps the rule that game fish not hooked in the mouth must go back, “except paddlefish legally taken during the paddlefish snagging season.”

Is it legal to catch a paddlefish? Yes, in the states and waters that open a season, with the license, permit or tag that state asks for. It is not legal in Minnesota, and outside the posted areas and dates snagging is illegal even where a season exists.

How do you snag a paddlefish?

From a boat over deep water, with heavy tackle and a big sweep of the rod. The clearest instructions come from the Missouri Department of Conservation, written for its reservoirs:

1. Find the fish. “Usually, paddlefish stay near the bottom, often congregating in deep holes near drop-offs.” A depth finder shows the holes and often the fish.
2. Use stout tackle. Missouri suggests a “stiff, 6- to 7-foot rod” with a level-wind saltwater reel and braided line of “100-pound test (or heavier).”
3. Rig two hooks above a weight. “Attach No. 8 to No. 14 treble hooks to the line,” most anglers two of them, with the lower one 18 to 24 in (46 to 61 cm) above the weight and the hooks rigged to ride upright. A treble hook is the norm in Missouri; Oklahoma allows one hook per line, single or treble, with the barb removed or closed (see barbless hooks).
4. Sweep, don’t jerk. Missouri’s advice is to “use a sweeping motion,” swinging the rod toward the boat and letting it back the other way without slack, and to use your legs and back rather than your arms.
5. Set the drag right. “Set the drag so you can barely pull line off the spool with your hand,” so it holds on the sweep but gives when the hooks catch bottom or a big fish runs.

Some states set more rules than these. Oklahoma allows one rod and reel per angler, and Missouri measures length from the eye to the fork of the tail, so the paddle does not count.

How do you handle and release a paddlefish?

Carefully, because a paddlefish’s gills and jaw are easy to hurt. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation is blunt: “Never, ever lift a paddlefish by the jaw, mouth, or gills.” One person grasps the paddle and a second the tail, with a third in the middle for a big fish. If there are not enough people to lift it safely, Oklahoma’s advice is that you “shouldn’t even remove it from the water.”

Photo: Ryan Hagerty, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery (public domain). The paddle and the tail are where Oklahoma says to hold one.

“Paddlefish need water flowing over their gills,” so a tired fish is revived by moving it gently through the water. Never weigh a fish you plan to release by hanging it from the jaws or gills; Oklahoma counts that as taking it into possession. A fish that keeps rolling onto its back is badly stressed and often does not recover. Missouri adds: wet your hands first, and “never put your fingers in the gills or eyes.”

Paddlefish snagging seasons by state (2026)

Every state runs its own season, and most are short, tagged or drawn. The table lists the 2026 rules as the agencies publish them; dates and limits change every year, so check the agency before you go.

The season follows the fish. Most open between mid-March and mid-June, when the spawning run stacks fish below dams and in the upper ends of reservoirs. Gavins Point on the South Dakota–Nebraska line is the exception, with its snagging season in October. Montana also sells an archery-only tag for the Fort Peck dredge cuts in July and August, where “No snagging is allowed.”

What is the paddlefish world record?

There is no official one. The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) keeps no paddlefish category, and its record database returns no species for the name. As Field & Stream puts it, the IGFA “doesn’t recognize any official records for the species.” The “world record” in the news is simply the heaviest state record.

Williams, from Olathe, Kansas, snagged his fish on March 17, 2024, the opening weekend of Missouri’s season. The Missouri Department of Conservation said it broke “the previous state record of 140 pounds” and “the previous world record of 164 pounds,” Rader’s Keystone Lake fish, which is still Oklahoma’s rod-and-line record. Missouri counts snagging under its alternative-methods records, separate from pole-and-line. The three heaviest fish all came from Keystone Lake and Lake of the Ozarks since 2020: the record has moved from wild rivers to stocked reservoirs.

Paddlefish caviar: what is legal?

The eggs are the reason paddlefish are watched so closely. When wild sturgeon caviar became scarce, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service writes, paddlefish roe came under pressure because of “the depletion of European and Asian sturgeon populations due to overharvesting.” The rules for anglers are strict:

• Missouri: “Paddlefish eggs may not be bought, sold, or offered for sale,” and extracted eggs “may not be possessed while on waters of the state or adjacent banks.”
• Oklahoma: you may possess eggs on the membrane from no more than one paddlefish, and no more than 3 lb of processed or loose eggs. Shipping or taking eggs out of the state is prohibited.
• Montana: state law lets anglers donate roe from paddlefish legally taken on the Yellowstone, from Glendive to the North Dakota line, to a nonprofit that sells it as caviar. The Glendive Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture has run it since 1990; the chamber keeps 70% of the money for local grants and the state’s wildlife agency 30% for paddlefish management and research.

Break a state’s roe law and it can become a federal case. In April 2013 seven men were charged in four indictments after a joint investigation by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Missouri Department of Conservation into paddlefish eggs taken in 2011 and 2012. The federal Lacey Act “prohibits trade in wildlife, fish and plants that have been taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of state law.” One defendant was charged with trying to export eggs in his checked luggage on an international flight from Washington, DC.

Are paddlefish good to eat?

Yes. Missouri’s conservation department describes paddlefish flesh as “very firm” with “enough fat” that it does not dry out on the grill, and the field guide says the fish “is valued for its flesh as well as for its caviar.” The meat needs cleaning the right way. Missouri’s 2005 Conservationist guide hangs the fish by the nose and cuts around the tail to the notochord, the cartilage backbone that “has the texture of dry silicone,” then pulls it to let the blood drain. The fillets come off both sides of the notochord; trim away the dark, V-shaped strip of red meat down the middle. Keep the meat in salt water until cooking, then fry it or grill 1-inch steaks. Check your state’s fish consumption advice for the water you fish, as you would for any big river fish.

Are paddlefish endangered?

Not under the federal Endangered Species Act, but they are a fish of concern. FishBase, citing the IUCN Red List, lists the American paddlefish as Vulnerable (assessed in 2019) and on CITES Appendix II, which controls international trade in its products. It rates the species’ resilience as low, with a minimum population doubling time of 4.5 to 14 years. Minnesota lists it as threatened and Texas protects it, while states with big stocked or river populations allow a tagged harvest.

FishBase names the threats as “over harvesting, habitat loss and pollution.” Two of them shaped the rules: dams that cut fish off from their spawning gravel, which is why Missouri has to stock its reservoirs, and the caviar trade. The freshwater fish outside the big families share much of that story; the sturgeon page tells it for the paddlefish’s closest relatives.

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