The 31,000-acre Beaver Lake in Northwest Arkansas has been a prime bass, crappie, and striper fishing spot for generations. The lake is thought for its sizzling motion for heavyweight striped bass, and massive linesiders had been the objective for fishing buddies Mike Schleeper and Tom Mayberry of Garfield, Arkansas, once they set out shortly after daybreak Saturday.
“I’ve caught some 30-pound striped bass in June from Beaver Lake, and that’s what we had been hoping for that sunny and sizzling morning,” Schlepper tells Out of doors Life. “We’d caught a pair small striped bass already — one on dwell minnow, one other on a prime water plug. We had been trolling slowly within the decrease lake in 30 toes of water. That’s once I bought a success on the minnow.”
The retiree stated it didn’t run or struggle like among the outsize stripers he’s caught. However he knew it was large, and the fish preserve surging away in opposition to heavy bait-casting sort out and 20-pound monofilament.
So he turned on his boat, a 24-foot Blue Wave middle console, and adopted the fish.
He fought the fish for a very long time, nonetheless considering it was a striper or maybe a heavy catfish. Lastly, 45 minutes after hooking up, he labored the fish to the floor and noticed one thing he’d by no means seen earlier than: an enormous paddlefish.
Picture courtesy AGFC
“I’d by no means seen one alive or up shut, however Tom fishes for them in Missouri and he was excited when he noticed how large it was,” says Schleeper. “It was foul hooked, and my 5/0 single hook was simply barely nonetheless within the fish … Tom was having a tough time dealing with it on the boat, and it wouldn’t slot in our internet. I informed him to simply minimize my line. However he knew we must always haul it aboard and weigh it.”
The anglers labored a rope by way of the fish’s gills and out its mouth, pulling it into their boat. That’s when the hook popped out of its pectoral fin.
“We had been actually fortunate to land it,” Schleeper stated. “We stop fishing then as a result of Tom insisted we now have it weighed and measured.”
Schleeper phoned a pal at Hook, Line and Sinker sort out store within the close by city of Rogers, explaining he’d caught an enormous paddlefish. His pal contacted the Arkansas Sport and Fish Fee. Quickly after Eric Gates, an AGFC biologist, known as Schlepper. He informed him to carry the fish to a FedEx workplace in Rogers the place they’d a licensed scale for an official weight of their catch.
“We drove to the FedEx workplace and met Eric, who had an enormous tub to place the fish in,” Schleeper says. “All of us stood in line contained in the FedEx workplace with the paddlefish within the tub, ready to make use of their scales.”
It took about quarter-hour to get their flip, and Schleeper says he bought some odd seems from individuals inside the shop.
“There was one FedEx worker who was a fisherman, although, and he was excited to see and weigh the fish.”
The paddlefish weighed 127 kilos 6 ounces on licensed scales, with a 66.75-inch size and a 44-inch girth.
Schleeper’s fish simply tops the outdated Arkansas report paddlefish (also referred to as a spoonbill), which weighed 118 kilos. That was caught by Minnesota’s James Johnson in 2020, additionally from Beaver Lake. The pending IGFA world-record paddlefish weighs 164 kilos, 13 ounces and was recently caught on Lake of the Ozarks, only a few hours north in Missouri.
Snagged paddlefish are accepted for Arkansas data as a result of the fish are plankton feeders and barely strike lures or baits. Snagging is the most typical technique of catching them.
Picture courtesy AGFC
Schleeper says that even at age 65 he will get loads excited catching large fish and could have a duplicate mount made by a taxidermist of his official state report paddlefish.
“I didn’t even know there have been paddlefish in Beaver Lake, so the entire thing was a cheerful shock for me,” he stated. “I’ll put the duplicate paddlefish mount in my store the place I’ve a number of different large fish mounted, together with some Beaver Lake stripers.
The presence of the prehistoric fish in Beaver Lake are the results of stocking within the Nineties, in line with AGFC. These stockings wwere performed to make sure a supply of paddlefish broodstock in case native river fisheries started seeing declines.
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“Fortunately, paddlefish proceed to do nicely in different rivers, and the Beaver Lake fish had been by no means wanted,” AGFC fisheries supervisor for the area Jon Stein said in a agency statement. “Nevertheless, these fish are producing nice trophy potential for anglers.”
A current regulation handed by the AGFC expands paddlefish alternatives by providing a restricted, permit-based snagging season within the White River portion of Beaver Lake to focus on a few of these big paddlefish as they transfer upstream.
