Paddlefish

[skinner80]

Hey Craig saw on KDWP there was talk of stocking paddlefish in Tuttle. Is this something that has already started and do you have further info? Paddlefish / Fish Stocking Records / Fishing / KDWPT - KDWPT

[Craig Johnson]

Hey Craig saw on KDWP there was talk of stocking paddlefish in Tuttle. Is this something that has already started and do you have further info? Paddlefish / Fish Stocking Records / Fishing / KDWPT - KDWPT

skinner80,

I sent your question to Ely Sprenkle, KDWPT District Fisheries Biology at Tuttle Creek. His reply is below.

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About 10,000 paddlefish intermediates were stocked into Tuttle Creek Reservoir during the early 90's. The hope was that these fish would stay in the Big Blue River system and establish a naturally reproducing population. However, high numbers of paddlefish were collected below Tuttle Creek dam which indicated that a lot of the fish were leaving the Reservoir during high flow through events, which are common at Tuttle Creek. Unfortunately, no natural recruitment has been documented in the reservoir. In addition, a paddlefish has not been documented above Tuttle Creek dam in the last 8 years that I know of. So it appears this experiment to establish a breeding population of paddlefish in the Big Blue River system has been a failure. It has been discussed to attempt to stock them again, but there are no plans to go forward with this.

[skinner80]

Thank you Craig and Eli this would probably explain why the random catching of a few paddlefish are a happening at the Milford Lake spillway each spring!