• Characteristics - slate-colored above, lighter below; greatly elongated snout, long gill covers and a shark-like mouth; scaleless with a skeleton of cartilage
• Distribution - Mississippi and Missouri Rivers as well as lower reaches of some larger tributaries of the Mississippi
• Foods - zooplankton, insect larvae
• State Record - 107 pounds - Missouri River, Monona County , March 1981 - Robert Pranschke, Onawa, Iowa
• Expert's Tip - almost all paddlefish are caught by snagging below a dam in the spring

For more paddlefish information, see our printable pdf (106K) or Iowa Fish & Fishing.