(Orleans)– Crews have started stocking paddlefish in the Iowa Great Lakes. Mike Hawkins, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources tells KUOO news the operations started Tuesday with a smaller test stocking of paddlefish brought up from the state fish hatchery at Rathbun…
“And the fish looked great and we’re going to continue those stocking loads over the next few days. So between about 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon over at Emmerson Bay State Park there at the boat ramp we’re going to be unloading those fish. We also have some paddlefish at the hatchery and we will have those in the hatchery until about noon on Friday for anybody that would like to stop by and take a look at them in the hatchery as well before they get stocked. We’re going to be using some of these fish in the hatchery to implant some acoustic tags that we’ll be able to track those fish out in the lakes with.”
Hawkins says the paddlefish will be stocked in the Okoboji chain only, with none of them going into Big Spirit Lake for now, at least. He says this marks the first time in more than100 years paddlefish have been in the Iowa Great Lakes…
“They would have historically been able to make it up to the lakes through the Little Sioux River from the Missouri River but dams along the way constructed a century ago stopped some of that migration up the river and so those historic populations faded away in the lakes. Probably the reported fish caught was around 1920.”
Hawkins says paddlefish grow to be quite large typically, but he says they do not pose a threat to other fish…
“There’s always a little bit of trepidation about a large fish in the lakes but these are filter feeders. They only eat zooplankton, so nothing to get scared about, I guess.”
Hawkins adds this is part of overall project to reintroduce paddlefish populations throughout the Mississippi and Missouri River Basins.
