Arkansas Sets New State Fishing Record After Snagging 127+ Pound Paddlefish That Looks Like A Dinosaur

The Arkansas state fishing record for paddlefish recently fell when angler Mike Schleeper of Garfield reeled in a 127 pound, 6 ounce paddlefish that dwarfed the previous state fishing record of 118 pounds.

Paddlefish are filter feeders and while there are specialized methods for fishermen to target the species. Those methods typically involve using expensive fish finders/sonar setups to map out the lake bottom and spot the fish before dropping down hooks/jigs to ‘snag’ the paddlefish. In fact, fishing for paddlefish is often called ‘snagging’ because that’s how you hook up as they don’t go after a bait on a hook like normal fish.

So when angler Mike Schleeper was fishing Beaver Lake in Northwest Arkansas and hooked into something big with his normal rod-and-reel setup he actually assumed it was a striped bass and not a new state fishing record for the paddlefish species. But after fishing the fish for 45 minutes and finally getting eyes on it he knew he’d caught something special.

In a recent press release, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission released details of the state’s newest fishing record including photos (on Facebook) of the massive fish that was actually bigger than the angler’s grandson:

Per the press release, Mike Schleeper had been fishing this lake for 13 years and says he caught plenty of striped bass weighing over 30 pounds “but this was different.”

Schleeper told AGFC “It didn’t strip line and stop in surges like big stripers do, he just sort of pulled the rod down and kept going. I couldn’t turn him so we had to follow him with the trolling motor for about the first 20 minutes.”

After fighting the fish for 45 minutes it got to the boat and at first they believed it to be a massive catfish. The Arkansas state fishing record for Blue Catfish is 116 pounds, 12 ounces and 80 pound, 0 ounces for Flathead Catfish but those fish were both caught on massive rivers.

After realizing that he’d snagged a potential record-setting paddlefish through its pectoral fin, they suddenly realized the fish was far too big to fit in their net. They were eventually able to work a rope through the fish’s mouth to secure it and then wrassle it into the boat where once it hit the bottom of the boat the snagged fishing hook immediately popped out as if it was waiting to fall out all along.

Something I learned from the press release, or something I perhaps knew at one point but have since forgotten, is that paddlefish are the “oldest surviving animal species in North America according to fossil records” and some predate dinosaurs dating back 300 million years.

Interestingly, the largest fish ever caught in the state of Arkansas is another living fossil, an alligator gar. That fish weighed 215 pounds, 0 ounces and was landed on the Arkansas River back in 1964. Paddlefish lays claim to the second heaviest state fishing record in The Natural State.

Paddlefish get BIG. Just last month an angler in North Dakota landed a 131-pounder for a state fishing record. And earlier this year / back in March, an angler set a new fishing world record for paddlefish when he caught a 164+ pounder.