On Could 3, simply two days into North Dakota’s temporary paddlefish snagging season, Tyler Hughes and his spouse had been at a major spot on the banks of the Yellowstone River. They had been fishing close to Fairview, roughly 5 miles upstream from the place the Yellowstone flows into the Missouri River. They’d spent the morning casting out an enormous, 10/0 treble hook hooked up to a 5-ounce weight, however by 10 a.m., Hughes realized he wasn’t ready to land a heavyweight paddlefish in the event that they snagged one. He’d forgotten his long-handled gaff.
“That’s after I jumped again in my truck and drove again to our campsite to get my gaff,” Hughes tells Outside Life. “I returned to the river with my gaff about half-hour later and began casting. At 11 a.m. I hooked one thing huge that I assumed was a rock or log. However then it began transferring, and I knew I’d hooked an enormous paddlefish.”
Utilizing a 10-foot spinning rod spooled with 75-pound take a look at braided line, Hughes battled the fish for round quarter-hour. The fish was snagged in its facet, and it ran all of it the best way throughout the muddy stretch of river, the place it threatened to interrupt off.
“The fish took all 250 yards of my braided line, and the knot connecting it to my 30-pound take a look at monofilament backing line was headed out of the rod guides,” Hughes says. “I knew I needed to get the mono again onto the reel as a result of the river is stuffed with snags and the fish would break the mono for positive.”
After gaining again some line, Hughes walked a brief distance upstream. He ultimately muscled the fish towards the shore, and he swung it downstream the place his spouse and a number of other different folks had been standing.
Video footage recorded that day reveals their buddies Joe Martino, Kellan Geiger, and Taylor Schwede sticking the fish with two gaffs, then dragging it out of the Yellowstone and onto dry land. It wasn’t a straightforward haul, and the fish misplaced some blood and eggs within the course of.
“I knew it was an enormous one, however didn’t take into consideration a file catch [at first],” Hughes explains. “However we loaded it into my truck, and I took it to a weigh station in Williston the place an organization cleans paddlefish in alternate for holding the roe [for] caviar.”
Hughes’ paddlefish weighed 131 kilos on the licensed scales there, and it measured 74 inches lengthy. State officers witnessed the weigh-in, and on Tuesday the North Dakota Sport and Fish Division introduced that the fish formally ties the standing state file for the species, which was caught in 2016 from the Missouri River close to its confluence with the Yellowstone.
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Hughes says he thinks his fish may have been even heavier, because it was three inches longer than the 2016 file. (It’s attainable that the NDGFD made a record-keeping mistake as a result of it lists Hughes’ fish as 53 inches lengthy within the file ebook however says it was 74 inches lengthy in a press launch. The company didn’t instantly reply to a request for clarification.)
“The caviar firm obtained about 30 kilos of roe from my fish, and the state people say it might have spewed some eggs earlier than it was weighed,” Hughes says. “The 2 huge gaff holes additionally induced a whole lot of blood loss, so it might have weighed extra. However I’m so grateful. It was a surreal catch.”