Paddlefish excursion lives up to its reputation as a North Dakota rite of spring
May 11—BUFORD, N.D. — It wasn't the kind of day you'd choose to stand on a sandbar or riverbank and sling 5 ounces of lead and a big treble hook into the river for hours on end — kerplunk, kerplunk, kerplunk — but when it comes to the Great Outdoors, you take what Mother Nature gives.
Or, in this case, what the river gives.
So it was last Friday, May 3, when anglers by the dozens braved chilly temps, a stiff wind and spitting rain to line the shore near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers for a chance at snagging a paddlefish, those prehistoric, weird-looking fish that can weigh 100 pounds or more even though they eat nothing but plankton.
Paddlefish are filter feeders, and the only way to catch one is by snagging.
They're an odd creature, to be sure, these fish with long snouts (called rostrums) and beady eyes, but when they head out of Lake Sakakawea to spawn on the sandbars of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers southwest of Williston each spring, snaggers by the hundreds converge for North Dakota's three-week season.
Season opened May 1 and is scheduled to continue through May 21, although the North Dakota Game and Fish Department can implement an early in-season closure with 24-hour notice if the catch approaches the 1,000-paddlefish harvest cap. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays are snag-and-keep days, while Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays are snag-and-release days. Fishing is allowed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CDT throughout the season.
Anglers must buy and have in their possession a paddlefish tag, in addition to other required licenses and certificates. A resident tag costs $10, and a nonresident paddlefish tag costs $25.50. A maximum of one tag per snagger is available per season, the limit is one paddlefish and tags can't be transferred.
Despite the weather, the atmosphere was downright festive last Friday morning as snaggers awaited the 7 a.m. start time when they could begin snagging. The rocky riverbank was lined with snaggers near the boat ramp at the Fort Buford Historic Site, and the parking lot was overflowing with pickup-camper rigs.
As in previous years, North Star Caviar was set up to clean the paddlefish that snaggers brought to the scales in exchange for the roe, which is made into caviar. Snaggers had brought 168 paddlefish to the scales on opening day — a snag-and-keep day — the biggest weighing 117 pounds.
It's quite an event, this paddlefish season, and 3,000 to 4,000 snaggers buy a tag every year, according to Greg Power, fisheries chief for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Bismarck.
They come from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Canada and beyond to take in the paddlefish season festivities.
"It's deeper than the paddlefish — it's tradition," Power said. "There's a group from Gillette, Wyoming, that (have been) regulars there for 20-30 years. Big groups of family or friends just meet up for the opener."
Ed Kouba of Bismarck is one of those regulars. With the exception of 2020, when the Game and Fish Department canceled the season because of the COVID pandemic, Kouba has participated in every paddlefish season since 1999, the year he retired from a long career with North Dakota Job Service.
He got some tips on how to rig the 10/0 treble hooks and 5-ounce bank sinkers from a couple of old-timers, and he's been hooked on paddlefish snagging ever since.
"It was something new, and I wanted to try it," said Kouba, 80, who grew up near Whitman, North Dakota. "And I had success. It's kind of adrenaline-filling to get your first paddlefish."
The inside lid of his tacklebox tells the story of every trip, including an 85-pound paddlefish he snagged in 2000 and a 90-pound paddlefish he wrestled to shore in 2014.
Going into this year, Kouba had only been skunked three times — in 2002, 2012 and 2019.
In the early years, Kouba slept in the back of his van near the confluence, shifting to the comfort of the Super 8 in nearby Williston in later years.
"Quite a number of years, I came by myself, and then eventually, more guys came with me," Kouba said. "Some enjoyed it; some didn't."
The paddlefish excursion has become a family tradition in recent years, with son Kevin Kouba, a Grand Forks insurance agent, joining him in 2019, and Kevin's son, Jack, 19, making his first trip in 2021.
The three generations have had good success, with Kevin filling his tag every year, and Jack snagging a paddlefish every year except his first. Even that year, though, Jack had an opportunity, losing a paddlefish at shore before Kevin could reach it with a gaff along the steep bank.
"You just never know," Kevin Kouba said. "We've been pretty fortunate with our snagging, but there are guys that have fished for years and not snagged one."
Ed Kouba prepares the meat with Shore Lunch, dipping it in beer batter before deep-frying.
"We cut it like chicken fingers in the restaurant — that's probably the best that we like," he said. "And my wife likes to sometimes boil it in sugar water. And then we just put butter and pepper and salt on it.
"We like that, too."
Just don't eat the red meat, Game and Fish's Power advises.
"You've got the white meat and the red meat — you don't want the red meat," Power said. That will make you sick.
Like many other snaggers, the Koubas take advantage of the boat shuttle service offered by Greg Schoneck of
Dakota Skulls Taxidermy
in Minot, to avoid the worst of the crowds. For $30 a head, Schoneck shuttles snaggers to other shoreline areas along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers.
Paddlefish snagging in North Dakota must be done from shore.
"One year, he only took us across the channel about 150 yards, but we got our fish that morning," Kevin Kouba said. "We find it's well worth the cost as he has a pretty good idea where the fish are moving, and we generally have a bit better situation than the folks that stay close to the ramp and line up along the rocks.
"We call that combat fishing. They are also usually the most entertaining folks."
After waiting in the shuttle line for half an hour or so in the predawn darkness, the boat ride was short, and Schoneck dropped us off at a sandbar we had to ourselves.
Jack Kouba wasted little time getting on the board, snagging into a paddlefish on his seventh or eighth cast that would later weigh 33 pounds on the North Star Caviar scale.
As battling fish go, paddlefish rank right up there, he says.
"It's kind of a mystery until it starts pulling back whether you're snagged or you hooked into a paddlefish," said Jack, who just wrapped up his freshman year as an Engineering Technology major at Bemidji State University. "It took a second to feel if it was pulling back. I just stared at my rod and (the line) started going back toward the river.
"I'm like, 'Yep, it's a paddlefish.' ... I haven't hooked into a monster yet, but even the 30-pounders put up a pretty good fight."
Despite the weather, the stiff west wind was at our backs, and the repetitive motion of casting 5 ounces of lead with a 10-foot rod and 30-pound test line, bringing it back to shore in a series of reels and jerks, quickly removed any lingering chills.
Anyone who thinks fishing isn't a workout has never tried paddlefish snagging.
After snagging a 30-or-so inch northern pike that was released unharmed, Kevin Kouba was next on the family bragging board, landing a paddlefish that would tip the scales at 36 pounds.
Once again, Kevin landed bragging rights in this father-son fishing contest, a fact he might have mentioned to Jack once or twice.
By day's end, snaggers had brought another 178 paddlefish to the scales at North Star Caviar, including a 131-pound behemoth snagged by Tyler Hughes of Mandan in the Yellowstone River that would tie the existing state record if the weight becomes official.
According to Power, the Game and Fish fisheries chief, the partnership with North Star Caviar has been useful in expanding the knowledge base about paddlefish. North Dakota and Montana share management of the Yellowstone-Sakakawea paddlefish population, and Dennis Scarnecchia, a professor of fisheries at the University of Idaho, has led the effort to research paddlefish populations.
Scarnecchia also is a primary author of the "Management Plan for North Dakota and Montana Paddlefish Stocks and Fisheries," a 254-page report published in 2021 that includes pretty much everything known about the species in the two states.
Game and Fish helps fund Scarnecchia's research at the University of Idaho, Power said, adding that paddlefish numbers before the early 1970s were likely far less than today.
According to the management report, an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 adult paddlefish migrate up the Yellowstone River to spawn in a given year. That doesn't include paddlefish not migrating to spawn that year or immature fish in Sakakawea, the report says.
"Our knowledge base, what we have today, is why we still have a season," Power said. "If we didn't know what we do through (Scarnecchia's) work, we'd probably have a closed season."
Saturday, May 4, dawned with better weather and a renewed optimism for Ed Kouba and the fourth member of the crew, neither of whom filled their tags the previous day. Optimism waned as the morning progressed, though, and there was no whooping and hollering or shouts of "Fish on!" from the 30-or-so anglers lined up along the stretch of river where they'd been dropped off by the shuttle boat.
In all of his years of paddlefish snagging, Ed Kouba said he'd never seen a day like that. Still, by day's end, another 123 fish had been brought to the scales.
Some people have all the luck. But as the old saying goes, there's always next year.
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